Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1884 — The Kind of Oil. [ARTICLE]

The Kind of Oil.

For a moment let us glance at the principal sources of animal and vegetable oil supply, ere the fountains of mineral oil were revealed for the use and comfort of the human family. First and foremost, of course, ranked the fish oils—the well-known train (or drain) oil which drained from the blubber of the great Greenland whale—a large whale sometimes yielding fully thirty tons of blubber—eash ton representing nearly 200 gallons of oil. Though the cachalot, or sperm-whale, could never rival the Greenland whale in the quantity of it a contribution, it had at least the advantage of quality and variety, since, besides ordinary blubber, it yields a large amount of sperm-oil, and also of spermaceti, ©f the latter valuable product, the head alone often yields ten barrels. Next among oil-yie.ding fish come the grampus, or dolphin, the porpoise, the shark, the seal, the cod, the herring, and others. Of animal fats are butter, tallow, lard, goose-grease, neat’s-foot oil (prepared from the feet of oxen and used by curriers in dressing leather), and mare’s grease (imported from Buenos Avres and Montevideo, where a multitude of horses are annually slaughtered for the sake of their hides, tallow, and bones) I In Russia, especially at Moscow, yelk-of-egg oil is in great repute for making soap and pomatum. Vegetable oils form a very important item in our supplies, inasmuph as oilseeds to the value of £5,500,000 are annually imported into Britain for crushing purposes, and our exports of oil are roughly valued at £1,600,000. The export of seed-oil from London, Hull, and Liverpool, in 1880, was 14,508,000 gallons.

Under the head of seed-oils rank linseed, cotton-seed, and castor oil. Colzo oil, also, is made from mustard, hemp, radish, rape, turnip, and other seeds. Then we nave olive oil and almond oil. From India comes poppy-seed oil; from the Black Sea, oil of sunflower seeds. From Oeylon and the Pacific isles comes cocoanut oil. From Western Africa the palm-nut oil of the oil palm, and oil of ground nuts for use in fine machinery. From Singapore and China we receive kokum oil an(l vegetable tallow. About 14,000 tons of croton oil are annually imported for the use of the wool-dressers of Britain. Besides these, so familiar to ourselves, almost every country has some specialty in oils. Thus, in Southern Russia, tobacco oil is largely used; in Italy, oil of grape stones; in China, oil of tea seed; in India, oil of nutmegs, of seed of the gamboge tree, of custardapple seed, of cashew-nut, of cardamom, of meam, of margoza, and many others. Brazil, too, has a large number of oils, both animal and vegetable, peculiar to itself. —Popular Science Monthly.