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Perfumery (Leaden pipes of inches)

leaden pipes of 2 inches diameter. Four tons of oil require 10 hours' straining. Palm oil is also bleached by chloride of lime. Take from 7 to 14 lbs. of chloride of lime, triturate in a mortar, adding gradually 12 times the quantity of water, so as to form a smooth cream. Liquefy 112 lbs. of palm oil, remove it from the fire, add the solution of chloride of lime, and stir well with a wooden stirrer. Allow it to cool, and when become solid, break it into small fragments, and expose it to the air for 2 or 3 weeks, then put into a cast-iron boiler lined with lead, diluted with 20 parts of water. Boil with a moderate heat till the oil drops clear from the stirrer; then let it cool. To remove the fœtor from fish oils, treat them in the same way (except the exposing to the air), using only 1 lb. of chloride of lime to 112 lbs. of oil. It does not remove the natural smell of the oil.

Calcined magnesia has been used to deprive oils of their rancidity.

Mr. Griseler finds that the addition of a few drops of nitric ether will prevent oils from becoming rancid. Mr. Watt's patented method of bleaching oil is by chromic acid. For palm oil it is thus used:

The oil is heated in a steam vessel, allowed to settle and cool down to 130° Fahr., then removed into wooden vessels, taking care that no water or sediment accompany it. For a ton of palm oil, make a saturated solution of 25 lbs. of bichromate of potash; add 8 lbs. of sulphuric acid, and 50 lbs. of muriatic acid (or an equivalent quantity of salt and sulphuric acid). Put the mixture into the oil, and let it be constantly stirred till it becomes of a light-green color. If not sufficiently decolored, add more of the mixture. Let the oil settle for half an hour, then pump it into a wooden vat, boil it for a few minutes with fresh water, by means of a steam-pipe, and let it settle. For linseed, rape, and mustard oils a dilute solution of chromic acid is used, with a little muriatic acid; for olive, almond, and castor oils no muriatic acid is required. Fish oils and fats are first boiled in a steam-apparatus with a weak soda lye (lb. of soda for every ton of fat) for half an hour; then lb. of sulphuric acid, diluted with 3 lbs. of water, is added; the whole boiled for 15 minutes, and allowed to settle for an hour or more, when the water and sediment are drawn off, and the oil further bleached by a solution of 4 lbs. of bichromate of potash and 2 lbs. of sulphuric acid, properly diluted.

Mr. Davidson treats whale oil first with a solution of tan, next with water and chloride of lime, and lastly with diluted sulphuric acid and warm water. Rape and other seed oils are also refined by means of sulphuric acid and twice as much water. Mr. Gray directs 2 lbs. of oil of vitriol to 112 lbs. of oil. The oil should be carefully washed from the acid and filtered.

Mr. Bancroft's process for refining common olive oil, lard oil, etc., for lubricating purposes, is to agitate them with from 34 to 8 per cent. of caustic soda lye, of 1.2 specific gravity. If, on trial of a small quantity, the lye be found to settle clear at the bottom, enough has been added. The oil is allowed to rest for twenty-four hours, fo. the soapy matter to subside: the supernatant oil is then filtered.

Another plan of purifying oils (especially lamp oils) is to agitate them with a strong solution of common salt.

Purification of Castor Oil.

Mix 1000 parts of the oil with 25 parts of animal charcoal, and 10 parts of calcined magnesia, and leave them together for 3 days at a temperature of 68° to 78° Fahr., often stirring or shaking the mixture. The oil is then filtered off, and is found to be limpid, colorless, without taste, and easily soluble in alcohol. It congeals, too, at a lower temperature than before, and is in that respect superior to the ordinary oil.

Oil of Brick, Used by lapidaries, is made by saturating fragments of brick with oil and distilling at a red heat.

Watchmaker's Oil. 1. Expose the finest porpoise oil to the lowest natural temperature attainable. It will separate into two portions, a thick, solid mass at the bottom, and a thin, oily supernatant liquid. This is to be poured off while at the low temperature named, and is then fit for use. 2. Put into a matrass or glass flask, a portion of any fine oil, with 7 or 8 times its weight of alcohol, and heat the mixture almost to boiling, decant the clear upper stratum of fluid, and suffer it to cool; a solid portion of fatty matter separates, which is to be removed, and then the alcoholic solution evaporated in a retort or basin, until reduced to one-fifth of its bulk. The fluid part of the oil will be deposited. It should be colorless and tasteless, almost free from smell, without action on infusion of litmus, having the consistence of white olive oil, and not easily congealable. 3. Take a white glass bottle of pure olive or almond oil, put into it a coiled strip of lead, and expose it to the sun's rays until a white curdy matter ceases to be deposited. To Prevent Fats and Oils from becoming Rancid.

Heat the oil or melted fat for a few minutes with powdered slippery-elm bark, in the proportion of 1 dr. of the powder to 1 lb. of fat. The bark shrinks and gradually subsides, after which the fat is poured off. It communicates an odor like that of the hickory-nut. Butter thus treated has been kept unchanged for a year.

Materials used.