Oleum

“ PET′ROLENE. The pure liquid portion of mineral tar. It has a pale yellow colour, a penetrating odour, and a high boiling point; is lighter than water, and is isomeric with the oils of turpentine and lemons. In its general proportions it resembles rectified mineral naphtha.
PETRO′LEUM. Syn. Rock oil, Liquid bitumen, Oil of petre; Oleum petræ, Bitumen liquidum, L. Petroleum is an oil found oozing from the ground or obtained on sinking wells in the soil. ”

“ It is found that transparent oils under the influence of light absorb oxygen, becoming deeper in colour and opalescent, while strong acidity and a penetrating odour are developed, these changes being due to the formation of various acid and phenylated compounds, which are also occasionally found in fresh oils. The residues from petroleum distillation have been shown to contain very dense solids and liquids of high specific gravity, having a large proportion of carbon and possessed of remarkable fluorescent properties. ”

“ The organic matter changed slowly into the complex mixture of hydrogen and carbon compounds that is petroleum.
Because gas is lighter than oil, and oil in turn lighter than water, gas and oil move upward in a porous rock containing all three. Gas moves to the highest position with oil next below and water in the lowest part of the rock. Oil pools exist where geologic barriers have stopped the movement of gas and oil. ”

“ OIL-GAS. A mixture of several gaseous hydrocarbons, obtained by passing common whale fat, resin, the heavy petroleum or shale oil, or the tarry residues left after the distillation of these two latter substances, or other cheap animal oil, through red-hot tubes, or by allowing it to fall in drops on red-hot stones or bricks arranged in an iron retort, or other suitable apparatus. The gas has great illuminating power, requires no purification, and is quite free from the ammoniacal and sulphur compounds which vitiate coal-gas. ”

“ Crude oil or petroleum is an organic substance consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons, that is, it is made up very largely of the two chemical elements carbon and hydrogen, in rather complex and variable combinations. ”

“ Petroleum has largely superseded other oils, and is still gaining ground, as a lubricant for machinery and railway rolling-stock, either alone or in admixture with fixed oils. The more viscous descriptions of mineral oils have also been found suitable for use in the Elmore process of ore-concentration by oil. ”

“ For the extraction of aromatic substances from plants a number of bodies are used which possess great solvent power for essential oils, and are besides very volatile, or have a low boiling-point. These are particularly ether, chloroform, petroleum ether, and bisulphide of carbon. ”

“ Applied to the abdomen in dyspepsia, diarrhœa, heartburn, worms, &c. It is seldom used in this country.
OILS (Mineral) . Syn. Hydrocarbon oils. An important class of liquids, consisting solely of carbon and hydrogen—the elements of ordinary coal-gas, and obtained by the distillation of coal, lignite, petroleum, and other bituminous substances. For the purposes of illumination, many of these oils are in most respects superior to the fixed or fat oils containing oxygen. They give a whiter and more brilliant light, and are produced at a much lower cost. ”

“ Many “fats” are consumed as food, others as fuel or for lighting purposes, in the shape of oils. Such oils are not primarily useful for burning. Petroleum and other mineral oils are found in enormous quantities in America. ”

“ If the oil be pure and freed from all extraneous matters, and the livers from which it is procured be in a recent and not in a putrid state, there is little apprehension as to any disagreeable effects following its exhibition ”

“ The oil must be put in a copper vessel with an equal quantity of water. Now boil for 3 hours, then extinguish the fire. When cold draw off the water. Let the mixture settle for a few weeks.
Mineral Oil:
See also Petroleum.
Production of Consistent Mineral Oils.—
Mixing Castor Oil With Mineral Oils.—Castor oil is heated for 6 hours in an autoclave at a temperature of 500° to 575° F., and under a pressure of 4 to 6 atmospheres. ”

“ A 10 per cent solution of aluminum oleate in petroleum is a very excellent agent for preserving the soles, a single saturation of the soles sufficing forever. The sole will last about 1 year.
III.—The following mixture is prepared by melting together over the fire in an enameled iron vessel: Vaseline, 400 parts; ceresine, 100 parts. The melted mass, which is used as a grease, is filled in wooden boxes or tin cans.
IV.—The oleic acid of the stearine factories is heated with strong alcohol and sulphuric acid. ”

“ Mineral oils are the distillation products of petroleum, partially liquid, and partially solid. Being inert substances, they have no tanning effect, but serve merely as water-proofing or fattening materials. Except for their oily nature they have nothing in common with fats, being quite unaffected by solutions of alkalies or of acids. ”

“ By these experiments, it appears that fixed oils combine with oxygen during combustion, and are thereby converted into water and carbonic acid. By means of calculation applied to the products of these experiments, we find that fixed oil is composed of 21 pairs, by weight, of hydrogen combined with 79 parts of charcoal. Perhaps the solid substances of an oily nature, such as wax, contain a proportion of oxygen, to which they owe their series of experiments, which I hope will throw light upon this subject. ”

“ To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm. ”

“ When water is heated to 212° it is converted completely into a gas, which gas returns to the fluid state without any loss on cooling below 212°. In like manner if we raise an essential-oil, such as turpentine, to 320°, or oil of peppermint to 340°, or orange-peel oil to 345°, or patchouli to 489°, and other such oils to various other temperatures, they pass into a state of vapor, and these vapors, when cooled, recondense into their original form of liquid oil without alteration. ”

“ If we put a quantity of this animal oil, we rectified, and consequently clear, limpid, and transparent, into a bell-glass filled with oxygen gas over mercury, in a short time the gas is much diminished, being absorbed by the oil, the oxygen combining with the hydrogen of the oil forms water, which sinks to the bottom, at the same time the charcoal which was combined with the hydrogen being set free, manifests itself by by rendering the oil black. ”

“ The Volatile Alkali that rises with the Oil, when Blood is distilled in a retort with a degree of heat greater than that of boiling water, is either the production of the fire, or arises from the decomposition of an Ammoniacal Salt, of which it made a part. ”

“ It is a good practice to pour into the pot a quantity of water, so that the oil may be lifted from the bottom of it, as all the impurities of the oil sink into the water, and do not again mix when it is stirred. When of the consistency above mentioned, the oil is separated from the water, and being put into a bottle, is subjected to heat till it becomes fluid again, when all remaining impurities will sink, and the oil, being carefully poured off from the sediment, forms what is termed "fat oil." ”

“ When hydrogen and charcoal are combined together, without the intervention of caloric, to bring the hydrogen into the state of gas, they form an oil, which is either fixed or volatile, according to the proportions of hydrogen and charcharcoal in its composition. The chief difference between fixed or fat oils drawn from vegetables by expression, and volatile or essential oils, is, that the former contains an excess of charcoal, which is separated when the oils are heated above the degree of boiling water ”

“ Certainly; the combustion of oil is just the same as that of a candle; if tallow, it is only oil in a concrete state; if wax, or spermaceti, its chief chemical ingredients are still hydrogen and carbon. ”

“ These two purely chemical objects are attained fully with the new process. Daily experience proves that all fatty bodies, such as oil, butter, tallow, fish oils, etc., and all such as easily dissolve in oil, like wax, resin, etc., refuse to unite with any watery substance without the aid of some third body that will bring about such union. The chief solvent for this purpose is alkali, which, under proper manipulation, always produces a sort of soap that then is soluble in water. ”

“ Oil is another common substance in plants, and it is made from the materials of starch which, as we know, are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; cotton-seed oil, olive oil, and castor oil we are all familiar with.
All nuts contain a great deal of oil, and the skin of a fresh-picked orange is so full of it that it runs down our fingers when we cut the orange.
All the things in a plant—starch, sugar, oils, spices, wood, bark—everything is made by the wonderful protoplasm in the cells. ”

“ Included in this group are several different kinds of compounds which have similar physical properties, and which, in general, belong to the type of organic compounds known as esters, i.e., alcoholic salts of organic acids. The terms "oil," "fat," and "wax," are generally applied more or less indiscriminately to any substance which has a greasy feeling to the touch and which does not mix with, but floats on, water. There are many oils which are of mineral origin which are entirely different in composition from natural fats. These have no relation to plant life and will not be considered here. ”

“ About twenty-three gallons of oil can be obtained from one bushel of the seed. By boiling the oil with lead oxide or manganese oxide it can take more oxygen from the air, and thereby its drying powers are increased. ”

“ You see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or something—get that out, and you're all right—perfectly easy then to turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that one little particle out—and we're the only firm that does. And we turn out an olive-oil that is just simply perfect—undetectable! ”

“ Acids act powerfully upon oils, but very differently, according to the nature of each. Alkalies also combine with oils, and the less thin and volatile they are, the more easily are they soluble in alkalies. The union of alkali and oil makes soap. All oil dissolves sulphur, and with it makes what is called a balsam. Oils also dissolve metallic substances, but most sensibly copper and lead. United with the calx of lead, it is used in painting. ”

“ The stearessence of anise-seed oil absorbed at its liquefying temperature, in the space of two years, 156 times its volume of oxygen gas, and disengaged 26 times its volume of carbonic acid gas. An oil which has begun to experience such an oxidizement is composed of a resin dissolved in the unaltered oil; and the oil may be separated by distilling the solution along with water. To preserve oils in an unchanged state, they must be put in phials, filled to the top, closed with ground glass stopples, and placed in the dark. ”

“ You will indeed obtain, by means thereof, much more Oil than if you distilled it without Salt: but, as a great quantity of Salt will make the water acquire a much greater degree of heat than that of pure boiling water, a good deal of the heavy Oil of the vegetable will be raised by such a heat, mix with the Essential Oil, deprave it, and make it like those that are adulterated with a mixture of some heterogeneous Oil, as will be afterwards shewn. ”

“ The drying of oils to a firm surface when spread in a thin layer is accompanied by an increase in weight, due to the absorption of oxygen. The percentage of oxygen absorbed often affords a criterion of the drying of the oil under examination, and this factor, together with data regarding the appearance of the oil film, should be taken into consideration when judging the value of an oil or oil mixture. Conditions of light, air, temperature, etc., often cause great variations in the drying of oils and the percentage of oxygen absorbed, as shown by the results obtained in the following tests. ”

“ Many animal and vegetable substances, consist, for the most part, of carbon, or charcoal, united with oxygen and hydrogen, which remember, together combined, form water. Now oil of vitriol or strong sulphuric acid, has so powerful an affinity or so great a thirst for water, that it will abstract it from almost any body in which it exists. ”

“ If we reflect on the manner in which it is produced, it is easy to perceive what those substances are that must be combined with it. It hath been shewn that plants, when analyzed, yield a great deal of Oil and of Acid. When they are burnt in the open air, all their Oil is dissipated in smoke, or consumed in flame. Great part of the Acid is likewise dissipated, and the remainder combining with the Earth of the plant forms a Fixed Alkali. ”

“ The results from the above experiments are the following:―
1. That the croton oil does not contain a volatile acid.
2. That the sensible acid in croton oil is fixed or retained in the oil, and cannot be separated from it by a heat at 212° Fahr., or even by distillation. {177}
3. That the acrid volatile principle, which exists in this oil, possesses not the qualities of an acid, and has hitherto withstood the chemical operations which were instituted to extract it.
4. That the active principles of croton oil are capable of being separated from one part of the oil, and concentrated in the other. ”