PARAFINE OILS AND THEIR PERILS.

Grey River Argus, Volume III, Issue 200, 25 April 1867, Page 3

PARAFINE OILS AND THEIR PERILS.

(From the Scientific Bcview.) ■ The danger arising from the storage, in one place, of large quantities of petroleum, or coal oils, has been but too often demonstrated by terrible facts. These oils are, in some respects, more perilous than gunpowder. When they take fire, the burning fluid is carried through the sewers to far distant localities, there to cause the most disastrous effects. But the greatest source of accident with them arises from their use in lamps. The risk from these lamps is manifold. They may be overturned, even when burning ; and from their ordinary form, this must be very likely to occur. They may be blown in pieces by an explosion. This may take place even with tolerably good oil ; but with bad, it would seem nearly inevitable. The recklessness of many persons is truly wonderful ; when one of tiese lamps requires a supply of oil, it is very frequently poured in without extinguishing the light. This is madness. -There is no safety unless the lamp is prepared during the day, and far away from the fire, or a light. And it should always be full of oil when first lighted, that there ' may be no space within it for an explosive mixture of vapour and atmospheric air. This mixture may, however, be formed while the lamp is burning ; since, as the oil is consumed, room is made for it. And it is nearly certain to be produced, unless the tube which hold the wick is pr.t in air-tight ; the air that supplies the place of the oil which is burned, will then obtain admission along the wick, if this is of a proper size. An air-hole, which so roany makers consider indispensible, is never to be permitted. But putting out the lamp is often attended with the greatest danger of all. If the wick is depressed sufficiently to extinguish the light, the flame may, jind very often does, run down into the lamp, and set fire to the vapour and air within it. And, if explosions do not always occur in such cases, it arises from the purely acci-' dental fact of there being too much of the inflammable vapour present to permit an explosion to take place, the effort being that of simple combustion. But why not blow out the light ? This is very natural, and but too often it is done ; yet there are the best reasons in the woi'ld for not doing it. Blowing into the lamp would supply that oxygen which is required to change the mixture of vapour and gas from being merely combustible to violently explosive. We all recollect the tragic occurrence that recently took place, when a painful death was the penalty of such an indiscretion. If a lamp explodes, the oil is blown cabout, and the flames thus produced are as inextinguishable as the famous Greek fire, winch most probably owed its peculiar properties to something of the kind being among its ingredients. Water, far from extinguishing it, only spreads the mischief wider, carrying the blazing oil, which floats upon it in every direction, and seeming, indeed, to add to the inflammability.