30 
ON  COTTON-SEED  OIL,  ETC. 
ON  COTTON  SEED  OIL,  AND  ITS  DETECTION  WHEN  MIXED 
WITH  OTHER  OILS. 
BY  R.  REYNOLDS,  F.  C.  S. 
In  the  year  1785,  the  Society  for  the  Encouragement  of 
xVrts  and  Commerce  offered  a  prize  for  the  successful  manufac- 
ture of  oil  from  cotton- seed,  but  it  has  not  yet  been  awarded. 
The  difficulties  in  purifying  the  expressed  oil  seem  to  have 
been  insuperable  for  a  long  while,  though  for  several  years 
past  the  oil  has  been  coming  into  use  in  the  United  States.  In 
our  own  country,  trifling  quantities  have  been  produced 
during  the  last  dozen  years  or  so,  but  at  the  present  moment  a 
very  considerable  quantity  is  being  expressed  in  England. 
There  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  nearly  the  whole 
of  -this  is  used  in  the  sophistication  of  oils  of  older  repute. 
The  probability  that  the  supply  will  now  continue  and  increase 
is  specially  indicated  by  a  consideration  of  the  source  of  the 
oil.  The  weight  of  the  seed  yielded  by  each  cotton  plant  is 
about  three  times  as  great  as  the  cotton  obtained  from  it,  and 
up  to  the  present  time  nearly  the  whole  of  this  seed  has  been 
wasted,  or  returned  to  the  soil  as  a  fertilizer.  The  present 
price  of  the  refined  oil  is  less  than  3s.  per  gallon,  and,  consid- 
ering the  large  proportion  of  seed  that  has  yet  to  be  utilized, 
it  is  probable  that  it  will  long  continue  to  be  the  cheapest 
fixed  oil  in  the  market.  Hence  the  desirability  of  our  giving 
some  attention  to  a  substance  which  is  pretty  sure  to  present 
itself  to  us  in  our  daily  avocations  in  some  shape  or  other. 
As  might  have  been  expected,  cotton-seed  oil  has  been  no- 
ticed in  the  literature  of  our  American  brethren.  Thus,  in 
1856,  Mr.  Wayne  brought  it  under  the  notice  of  the  American 
Pharmaceutical  Association,  and  in  1861  it  formed  the  subject 
of  an  inaugural  essay  by  Mr.  Weatherley,  (Pharm.  Jour.  N.  s. 
vol.  iii.  p.  30.) 
Mr.  Weatherley's  essay  well  deserves  attention.  The  au- 
thor repudiates  much  of  the  discredit  thrown  upon  the  oil  on 
account  of  its  asserted  drying  qualities,  and  says  that  it  an- 
swers well  for  both  burning  and  lubricating. 
