,364 
RHIGrOLENE,  ETC. 
liquids  obtained  by  the  distillation  of  petroleum,  and  which  has 
been  applied  to  the  production  of  cold  by  evaporation.    It  is  a 
hydrocarbon,  wholly  destitute  of  oxygen,  and  is  the  lightest  of 
all  known  liquids,  having  a  specific  gravity  of  0*625.  It  has  been 
shown  that  petroleum,  vaporized  and  carefully  condensed  at  dif- 
ferent temperatures,  offers  a  regular  series  of  products  which 
present  more  material  differences  than  that  of  their  degree  of 
volatility,*  and  that  the  present  product  is  probably  a  combina- 
tion of  some  of  the  known  products  of  petroleum  with  those  vola- 
tile and  gaseous  ones  not  }^et  fully  examined,  and  to  which  this 
fluid  owes  its  great  volatility.  A  few  of  these  combinations  are  al- 
ready known  in  trade,  as  benzolene,  kerosene,  kerosolene,  gaso- 
lene, &c,  all  of  them  naphthas,  but  varying  with  different  manufac- 
turers. I  procured,  in  1861,  a  quantity  of  kerosolenef  of  four  dif- 
ferent densities,  and  found  the  lightest  of  them,  the  boiling  point  of 
which  was  about  90°,  to  be  an  efficient  anaesthetic  by  inhalation.  J 
When  it  was  learned  here  that  Mr.  Richardson,  of  London,  had 
produced  a  useful  ansesthesia  by  freezing  through  the  agency  of 
ether  vapor,  reducing  the  temperature  to  6°  below  zero,  F.,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  a  very  volatile  product  of  petroleum  might 
be  more  sure  to  congeal  the  tissues,  besides  being  far  less  expen- 
sive, than  ether.    Mr.  Merrill  having,  \t  my  request,  manufac- 
tured a  liquid  of  which  the  boiling  point  was  70°  F.,  it  proved 
that  the  mercury  was  easily  depressed  by  this  agent  to  19°  below 
zero,  and  that  the  skin  could  be  with  certainty  frozen  hard  in 
five  or  ten  seconds.    A  lower  temperature  might  doubtless  be 
*  See  Kesearclies  on  the  Volatile  Hydrocarbons,  with  references  to 
authorities,  by  C.  M.  Warren.  American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts, 
July,  September  and  November,  1865. 
fThe  kerosolene  was  furnished  by  Mr.  Merrill,  Superintendent  of  the 
Downer  Kerosene  Oil  Co.,  South  Boston. 
X  An  account  of  these  experiments  may  be  found  in  this  Journal,  July 
11,  1861.  Reference  is  made  to  them  in  a  paper  11  On  the  most  Volatile 
Constituents  of  American  Petroleum,"  by  Edmund  Ronalds,  Ph.  D.,  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Chemical  Society,  London,  February,  1865.  Mr.  Ro- 
nalds there  states  that  "the  most  volatile  liquid  obtained  by  collecting 
the  first  runnings  from  the  stills  employed  in  the  process  of  refining  petro- 
leum has  a  specific  gravity  of  0'666."  He  had  also  received  a  specimen 
of  "  kerosolene  "  from  Prof.  Simpson,  of  Edinburgh,  at  0*633.  It  will  be 
observed  that  the  Rhigolene  has  a  specific  gravity  of  0*625. 
