The rise and progress of the mineral-oil industry are too well known to need any special comment. In this and other countries, the supply of hydro-carbon oils, both from shale-beds and springs, has of late years received remarkable development. Nor will surprise be expressed, viewing the enormous quantities of this material brought into the market, and the low figure at which it can be supplied, that efforts are continually being made, and experiments carried out, to utilise in new forms the heat and light giving properties so eminently possessed by this commodity.
Some little time back, we touched on heat-production from hydro-carbon oil, and pointed out its adaptability for raising steam on board ships, and similar cases where saving in space and weight forms an important desideratum. Since then, matters have advanced considerably, and the late voyage of a vessel in British waters propelled entirely by oil-fed furnaces, sufficiently testifies to the progress already made.
Hydro-carbon oils promise, however, to find employment in another direction—namely, for lighting purposes, and already at the great Forth Bridge works a considerable number of the new lights are in regular operation, and giving results in every respect satisfactory. The essential principle involved in this method of lighting consists in forcing air, compressed to about twenty pounds on the square inch, through the heavy hydro-carbon oil. The oil issues from the burner in a fine spray, which burns with a remarkably steady and brilliant light, the oxygen of the air being thoroughly consumed. The absence of smoke and smell is particularly noticeable. The oil is stored in circular tanks of galvanised iron, holding some twenty gallons, or about ten hours’ supply. A vertical tube extends upwards from the tank and carries the burner; whilst an ingeniously contrived shade, arranged to turn around the burner according to the direction of the wind, affords shelter to the flame. A safety-valve is fitted to the tank to obviate any undue increase of pressure in the air. The whole apparatus is mounted on a stand some fifteen to twenty feet high, and sheds a brilliant light for at least two hundred yards.
It may be added that the well-diffused light of the new system contrasts very forcibly with the black dense shadows cast by the electric light, and forms a strong argument in favour of the former. The power required to supply air is not large, about one-eighth horse-power being found sufficient for each light. Thus, a small air-compressor of five horse-power can readily produce abundant pressure for forty lights. When employed on a large scale, and laid down permanently, other economies and conveniences can be effected, as, for example, the erection of a central tank arranged to feed all the burners.
Turning now to the oil employed, it may be noted that almost any oil may be utilised, the crude and waste products of oil and gas works being found to yield excellent results. This fact alone, enabling products of small value to be rendered serviceable, should advance the light in no small degree. There is beyond all question a large field for any illuminating agent, which can be readily erected in goods-sheds, ship-yards, or engineering works, and can be worked at moderate cost. Whether or not this adaptation of hydro-carbon oil will fulfil all the conditions necessary to render it a commercial success and lead to its wide development, time alone can tell. We have, however, shown that it has already done good work, and promises well for the future.
Mr G. A. Sala, recently addressing the representative of an Australian journal, said: ‘I recognise that labour is needed everywhere in Australia—more working men, more domestic servants, more young men, more intelligent men, more Scotsmen—as many more as ever you like. I think I have also been able to discern the people who are not required here. These are the black-sheep of good families, loafers, idlers, young men who come out and spend their money, drift into dissolute habits, get remittances to take them home again, where they do nothing but abuse the colonies, of which they know nothing, and in which their presence was likely to do more harm than good. I have been preaching lay sermons for a good many years; and were I not too old and too wicked, I would get into some pulpit at home and preach as a minister, for certainly ministers have more influence over their congregations than lecturers have over audiences. I would say to my hearers: “My capable, hard-working, shrewd, intelligent brethren, go out to Australia. You and your wives and your children, go out, work hard; and be assured that, with or without capital, you will, by hard working, frugality, and sobriety, greatly better your condition. Not only that, but you will also better those whom you leave behind. You will give more and more backbone, more and more muscle, more and more red blood, to the body politic of Australia.” But I would also add: “My idle brethren, my stupid brethren, my wicked, needy brethren, my vicious brethren, my drunken brethren, stop at home and gravitate to your natural refuge, the poorhouse. Do not go out to Australia to become a nuisance and a pest there.” Then, in more forbearing language, I would amicably advise young men in England of mere clerical attainments, who can at best only hope to be bookkeepers or shop assistants, to think twice, nay thrice, before they travel thirteen thousand miles to find a country where the native youths equal, if they do not excel them in the ability demanded by the requirements of the counting-house and shop-counter.’
Sir John Brown, of the well-known firm of John Brown & Co., has said that he ‘feared England had almost, if not altogether reached the summit of her prosperity, and that she must not again look for any material prosperity such as the last thirty or forty years had displayed.’ English trade was being nibbled right and left by Germany, Austria, Prussia, and the United States. Illustrating this, Sir John stated that his large ship-building Company at Hull had recently taken their supplies of steel plates from Germany at prices varying from ten shillings to twenty shillings per ton below the prices at which Sheffield could supply the material. The same was true of ship-building firms at Newcastle and other places. Notwithstanding the cost of carriage, rails were sent more cheaply from Germany, by Antwerp and the German Ocean, to Hull and Newcastle than they could be made in England. A process of cold-rolling is known only to certain French and American houses; and it is curious, but not altogether creditable to ourselves, that steel is sent to Paris to be cold-rolled, and is afterwards returned to this country.