Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882

V >> Various >> Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

In a paper published in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Vol.
IX., p.481, M. Berthelot attempts to show that the formation of
petroleum and carbureted hydrogen from inorganic substances is possible,
if it be true, as suggested by Daubre, that there are vast masses of the
alkaline metals--potassium, sodium, etc.--deeply buried in the earth,
and at a high temperature, to which carbonic acid should gain access;
and he demonstrates that, these premises being granted, the formation of
hydrocarbons would necessarily follow.

But it should be said that no satisfactory evidence has ever been
offered of the existence of zones or masses of the unoxidized alkaline
metals in the earth, and it is not claimed by Berthelot that there are
any facts in the occurrence of petroleum and carbureted hydrogen in
nature which seem to exemplify the chemical action which he simply
claims is theoretically possible. Berthelot also says that, in most
cases, there can be no doubt of the organic origin of the hydrocarbons.

Mendeleeff, in the _Revue Scientifique_, 1877, p. 409, discusses at
considerable length the genesis of petroleum, and attempts to sustain
the view that it is of inorganic origin. His arguments and illustrations
are chiefly drawn from the oil wells of Pennsylvania and Canada, and
for the petroleum of these two districts he claims an inorganic origin,
because, as he says, there are no accumulations of organic matter below
the horizons at which the oils and gases occur. He then goes into a
lengthy discussion of the possible and probable source of petroleum,
where, as in the instances cited, an organic origin "is not possible."
It is a sufficient answer to M. Mendeleeff to say, that beneath the oil
bearing strata of western Pennsylvania are sheets of bituminous shale,
from one hundred to five hundred feet in thickness, which afford an
adequate, and it may be proved the true source, of the petroleum, and
that no petroleum has been found below these shales; also that the
oil-fields of Canada are all underlain by the Collingwood shales, the
equivalent of the Utica carbonaceous shales of New York, and that from
the out-crops of these shales petroleum and hydrocarbon gases are
constantly escaping. With a better knowledge of the geology of the
districts he refers to, he would have seen that the facts in the
cases he cites afford the strongest evidence of the organic origin of
petroleum.

Among those who are agreed as to the organic origin of the hydrocarbons,
there is yet some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of the
process by which they have been produced.

Prof. J. P. Lesley has at various times advocated the theory that
petroleum is indigenous in the sand-rocks which hold it, and has been
derived from plants buried in them. ("Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc.," Vol.
X., pp. 33, 187, etc.)

My own observations do not sanction this view, as the limited number of
plants buried in the sandstones which are now reservoirs of petroleum
must always have borne a small proportion in volume to the mass of
inorganic matter; and some of those which are saturated with petroleum
are almost completely destitute of the impressions of plants.

In all cases where sandstones contain petroleum in quantity, I think it
will be found that there are sheets of carbonaceous matter below, from
which carbureted hydrogen and petroleum are constantly issuing. A more
probable explanation of the occurrence of petrolem in the sandstones is
that they have, from their porosity, become convenient receptacles for
that which flowed from some organic stratum below.

Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has regarded limestones, and especially the Niagara
and corniferous, as the principal sources of our petroleum; but, as I
have elsewhere suggested, no considerable flow of petroleum has ever
been obtained from the Niagara limestone, though at Chicago and Niagara
Falls it contains a large quantity of bituminous matter; also, that the
corniferous limestone which Dr. Hunt has regarded as the source of the
oil of Canada and Pennsylvania is too thin, and too barren of petroleum,
or the material out of which it is made, to justify the inference.

The corniferous limestone is never more than fifty or sixty feet thick,
and does not contain even one per cent. of hydrocarbons; and in southern
Kentucky, where oil is produced in large quantity, this limestone does
not exist.

That many limestones are more or less charged with petroleum is well
known; and in addition to those mentioned above, the Silurian limestone
at Collingwood, Canada, may be cited as an example. As I have elsewhere
shown, we have reason to believe that the petroleum here is indigenous,
and has been derived, in part, at least, from animal organisms; but the
limestones are generally compact, and if cellular, their cavities are
closed, and the amount of petroleum which, under any circumstances,
flows from or can be extracted from limestone rock is small. On the
other hand, the bituminous shales which underlie the different oil
regions afford an abundant source of supply, holding the proper
relations with the reservoirs that contain the oil, and are
spontaneously and constantly evolving gas and oil, as may be observed
in a great number of localities. For this reason, while confessing
the occurrence of petroleum and asphaltum in many limestones, I am
thoroughly convinced that little or none of the petroleum of commerce is
derived from them.

Prof. S.F. Peckham, who has studied the petroleum field of southern
California, attributes the abundant hydrocarbon emanations in that
locality to microscopic animals. It is quite possible that this is
true in this and other localities, but the bituminous shales which are
evidently the sources of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky,
etc., generally contain abundant impressions of sea weeds, and indeed
these are almost the only organisms which have left any traces in them.
I am inclined, therefore, now, as in my report on the rock oils of Ohio,
published in 1860, to ascribe the carbonaceous matter of the bituminous
shales of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and hence the petroleum derived from
them, to the easily decomposed cellular tissue of algae which have
in their decomposition contributed a large percentage of diffused
carbonaceous matter to the sediments accumulating at the bottom of the
water where they grew. In a recent communication to the National Academy
of Sciences, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt has proposed the theory that anthracite
is the result of the decomposition of vegetable tissue when buried in
porous strata like sandstone; but an examination of even a few of the
important deposits of anthracite in the world will show that no such
relationship as he suggests obtains.

Anthracite may and does occur in sedimentary rocks of varied character,
but, so far as my observation has extended, never in quantity in
sandstone. In the Lower Silurian rocks anthracite occurs, both in the
Old World and in the New, where no metamorphism has affected it, and
where it is simply the normal result of the long continued distillation
of plant tissue; but the anthracite beds which are known and mined in so
many countries are the results of the metamorphism of coal-beds of one
or another age, by local outbursts of trap, or the steaming and baking
of the disturbed strata in mountain chains, numerous instances of which
are given on a preceding page.

M. Mendeleeff, in his article already referred to, misled by a want of
knowledge of the geology of our oil-fields, and ascribing the petroleum
to an inorganic cause, connects the production of oil in Pennsylvania
and Caucasia with the neighboring mountain chains of the Alleghanies and
the Caucasus; but in these localities a sufficient amount of organic
matter can be found to supply a source for the petroleum, while the
upheaval and loosening of the strata along lines parallel with the axes
of elevation has favored the decomposition (spontaneous distillation) of
the carbonaceous strata. It should be distinctly stated, also, that no
igneous rocks are found in the vicinity of productive oil-wells, here or
elsewhere, and there are no facts to sustain the view that petroleum is
a volcanic product.

In the valley of the Mississippi, in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, are
great deposits of petroleum, far removed from any mountain chain or
volcanic vent, and the cases which have been cited of the limited
production of hydrocarbons in the vicinity of, and probably in
connection with, volcanic centers may be explained by supposing that
in these cases the petroleum is distilled from sedimentary strata
containing organic matter by the proximity of melted rock, or steam.

Everything indicates that the distillation which has produced
the greatest quantities of petroleum known was effected at a low
temperature, and the constant escape of petroleum and carbureted
hydrogen from the outcrops of bituminous shales, as well as the result
of weathering on the shales, depriving them of all their carbon, shows
that the distillation and complete elimination of the organic matter
they contain may take place at the ordinary temperature.

* * * * *

ESTIMATION OF SULPHUR IN IRON AND STEEL.

By GEORGE CRAIG.

For wellnigh two years I have been estimating sulphur in iron and steel
by a modification of the evolution process, which consists in passing
the evolved gases through an ammoniacal solution of peroxide of
hydrogen, which oxidizes the sulphureted hydrogen to sulphuric acid,
which latter is estimated as usual. The _modus operandi_ is as follows:

[Illustration]

100 grains of the iron or steel are placed in the 10 oz. flask, a, along
with 1/2 oz. water; 11/2 oz. hydrochloric acid are added from the stoppered
funnel, b, in such quantities at a time as to produce a moderate
evolution of gas through the nitrogen bulb, c, which contains 1/8 oz.
(20 vols.) peroxide of hydrogen and 1/2 oz. ammonia. The tube, d, is to
condense the bulk of the hydrochloric acid which distills over during
the operation. When all the acid has been added and the evolution of gas
becomes sluggish, heat is applied and the liquid boiled till all action
ceases. Air is blown through the aparatus for a few minutes and the
contents of c and d washed into a small beaker and acidified with
hydrochloric acid, boiled, barium chloride added, and the barium
sulphate filtered off after standing a short time. A blank experiment
must be done with each new lot of peroxide of hydrogen obtained, which
always gives under 0.1 barium sulphate with me.

The whole operation is finished within two hours, the usual oxidation
process occupying nearly two days; and the results obtained are
invariably slightly higher than by the oxidation processes.

Until lately I have always added excess of chlorate of potash to the
residue left in a, evaporated it nearly to dryness, diluted, filtered,
and added chloride of barium to the diluted filtrate, but only once
have I obtained a trace of precipitate after standing 48 hours, and the
pig-iron in that case contained 8 per cent. of silicon, so that all
the sulphur is evolved during the process. It has been objected to the
evolution process that when the iron contains copper all the sulphur is
not evolved, but theoretically it ought to be evolved whether copper is
present or not; and to test the point I fused 3 lb. of ordinary Scotch
pig-iron with some copper for half an hour in a Fletcher's gas furnace.
No copper could be detected in the iron by mere observation with a
microscope, but it gave on analysis 0.225 per cent. of copper, and on
estimating the sulphur in it by the above process and by oxidation with
chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid, using 100 grains in each case,
and performing blank experiments, I found:

By peroxide of hydrogen process 0.0357 per cent.
By oxidation (KClO_{3} and HCl) process, 0.0302 "

so that even in highly cupriferous pig-iron all the sulphur is evolved
on treatment with strong hydrochloric acid.--_Chem. News_.

* * * * *

THE AIR IN RELATION TO HEALTH.

[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture before the Master Plumbers'
Association, New York, Nov. 2. 1882.]

By Prof. C. F. CHANDLER.

It is only about one hundred years since the first important facts were
discovered which threw light upon the chemistry of atmosphere. It was in
1774 that Dr. Priestley, in London, and Scheele, in Sweden, discovered
the vital constituents of the atmosphere--the oxygen gas which supports
life. The inert gas, nitrogen, had been discovered a year or two before.
When we examine our atmosphere, we find it is composed of oxygen and
nitrogen. The nitrogen constitutes no less than 80 per cent, of the
atmosphere; the remaining 20 percent, consists of oxygen, so that the
atmosphere consists almost entirely of these two gases, odorless and
colorless and invisible. The atmosphere is, however, never free from
moisture; a certain amount of aqueous vapor is always present. The
quantity can hardly be stated, as it varies from day to day and month
to month; it depends upon the temperature and other conditions. Then
we have the gas commonly called carbonic acid in extremely minute
quantities, about one part in 2,500, or four one-hundredths of one per
cent. A small quantity of ammonia and a small quantity of ozone are also
present.

Besides these gases which have been enumerated, and which play an
important part in supporting life in both the kingdoms of nature, we
find a great many solids. Every housewife knows how dust settles upon
everything about the house. This dust has recently been the subject of
most active study, and it proves to be quite as important as the vital
oxygen that actually supports life. When we examine this dust--and it
falls everywhere, not only in the city streets, but upon the tops of
mountains, upon the deck of the ocean steamer, and the Arctic snow--we
find some of it does not belong to the earth, and, as it is not
terrestrial, we call it cosmical. And when it falls in large pieces we
call it a meteorite or shooting star. When the Challenger crossed the
Atlantic, and soundings were made in the deep sea, in the mud that was
brought up and examined there were found various little particles that
were not terrestrial. They were dust particles that were dropped into
the atmosphere of the earth from outer space. Then we have terrestrial
dust, and we divide that into mineral and organic. The mineral consists
chiefly of clay, sand, and, near the ocean, salt. Then we have organic
matter. Some of this is dead leaves which have been ground to powder.
Animal matter has also become dry and reduced to powder, and we actually
find the remains of animals and plants floating upon the atmosphere,
especially in the city. Examinations of the dust which had collected
upon the basement and higher windows of a Fifth avenue residence showed
that the dust upon the basement floor was chiefly composed of sand.
And the higher up I went, the smaller proportion of sand and a larger
proportion of animal matter, so that the dust that blows into our faces
is largely decomposing animal substance.

But we have a living matter in the atmosphere. We often notice in the
summer, after a rain, that the ground is yellow. On gathering up the
yellow powder and examining it under the microscope, we find that it
consists of pollen. The pollen of rag weed and other plants is supposed
to be the cause of hay fever. But we also have something far more
important in the germs of certain classes of vegetation. The effects
are familiar. If food is put away, it becomes mouldy. This mould is a
peculiar kind of vegetation which is called a fungus, and the plants
fungi. In order for this mould to develop a certain temperature and a
certain degree of moisture are necessary. Our food, we say, decays.
Now, what we call decay is really the growth of these fungi. Animal and
vegetable substances which these fungi seize upon are destroyed. All
ordinary fermentations and putrefactions are due to mould fungi, yeast
plants, or bacteria, and liquids undergoing these processes carry these
fungi and their germs wherever they go. The refuse of the city pollutes
the air. You have only to pass along any street to find more or less
rubbish. That furnishes the nidus for the growth and development of
these germs, and until we adopt better methods of getting rid of that
refuse, we never shall have the air of this city in the condition that
it should be.

One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in
inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the
ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and
putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of
the ground water contains a large amount of air. This air, when the
atmospheric pressure in the house is diminished, is drawn in with such
organic impurities as it contains. A cement floor in the cellar is not
a protection against this entrance of the ground air, for the cement is
porous to the passage of air, but a remedy may be found by laying on the
cement a covering of coal tar pitch, in which bricks are set on edge,
the spaces between the bricks are filled with the melted pitch, and the
bricks then covered with coal tar pitch. When the house is building, the
foundation walls should also be similarly coated, outside as well as
inside. Such a cellar floor was considered to be absolutely impervious
to ground air and moisture. The lecturer had recently laid this floor in
his own house with the greatest success. The atmosphere of the entire
house is improved, and the expense is very moderate. Another source of
the contamination of the air of houses is the heating apparatus.
Stoves and furnaces, however well constructed at first, will, from the
contraction and expansion of the metal, soon allow the escape of coal
gas, and this danger is greatly increased by the use of dampers in
the stove-pipe. When, to regulate the fire, the damper in the pipe is
closed, the gases, having their passage to the chimney cut off, will
escape through any cracks or openings in the stove into the room.
Prof. Chandler, having kept a record of accidents from this cause, had
accumulated a formidable list of suffocations due to the use of the
damper. The danger was now somewhat lessened by providing dampers with
perforations in the center, which allowed the gases to escape when the
damper was closed. As regards the maintenance of pure air in houses,
the preference was given to the open fire-place. The hot-air furnace
deriving a supply of pure air from out of doors was, when properly
constructed, a very satisfactory method of heating, but in city houses
the mistake was often made of carrying the cold air duct of the furnace
to the front of the house, where it was exposed to the dust of the
streets. It should be taken from the rear end of the house, and carried
some distance above the surface of the yard. It was an excellent
expedient to insert in the cold air duct a wire screen to hold a layer
of cotton to retain the floating impurities which might enter the
air-box. This could be removed from time to time, and the cotton
replaced. Steam heating has been objected to by many for reasons in
no wise due to the apparatus, but to neglect in the use of it. The
complaint of closeness where steam is used is due to the fact that a
room containing a steam radiator can be heated with every door and
window closed, and no fresh air admitted, while with stoves and open
fire-places a certain quantity of fresh air must be admitted to maintain
the fire. Where radiators are used, the ventilation of the rooms should,
therefore, be looked after. Again, the complaint that steam apparatus
has an unpleasant odor is due to the fact that the radiators are allowed
to become covered with dust, which is cooked, and gives rise to the
smells complained of. The radiator should be from time to time
cleaned. When these precautions are taken, no means of heating is more
satisfactory than steam.

Sewer gas is another source of contamination; this is a very indefinite
term, to which formerly many false and exaggerated properties of causing
specific diseases were attributed. It is now, however, recognized to
mean simply the air of sewers, generally not differing very greatly from
common air, containing a certain proportion of marsh gas, carbonic
acid, and sulphureted hydrogen, etc. No one of these gases, however,
is capable of producing the diseases attributed to sewer gas. Careful
research has shown that it is the sewage itself, containing germs of
specific disease, which is added to the air in the sewer by the breaking
of bubbles of gas on its surface, which is the cause of the diseases
associated with sewers.

An intimate connection is believed to exist between the germs of sewer
air and diphtheria, and probably also between sewer air and scarlet
fever. This sewer gas is to be excluded from our houses by proper
systems of plumbing, and to such an extent have these now been
perfected, that there is no objection to having plumbing fixtures in
all parts of the house. This opinion has lately been objected to in the
_Popular Science Monthly_, as it was at a meeting of the Academy of
Medicine last spring, but on wholly insufficient grounds.

The objectors all insist that a trap will allow sewer gas to pass
through it, and the experiments made at the Academy of Medicine showed
that sulphureted hydrogen gas, etc., would so pass. The advocates of the
trap have never denied that the water seal would absorb gases on one
side and give them off on the other, but they do deny that, in the
conditions existing in good plumbing, such gases will be given off in
quantities to do any damage, and they confidently assert that the germ
which is the dangerous element will not pass the seal at all. Pumpelly
investigated the matter for the National Board of Health, and in no
instance was he able to make the germ pass the seal of the trap. It is
now proposed to set up against the weight of this scientific testimony
the results of an investigator in Chicago, whose work was at once
appropriated as an advertisement by stock jobbing disinfectant companies
in a manner which raises a suspicion that the investigation was made in
their interest. He described tersely the essentials of good plumbing,
the necessity of a trap on the house drain, the ventilation of the
soil-pipe, and the ventilation of the trap against siphonage. Of the
first, he said that it offered protection to each householder against
the entrance into his house of the germs of a contagious disease which
passed into the common sewer from the house of a neighbor. Were the trap
dispensed with, the contagion in the sewer would have free entrance into
the houses connecting with it.

Prof. Chandler, in conclusion, alluded to the cordial relations now
existing between the Board of Health and the majority of the master
plumbers of the city. He said that for himself his opinion of the craft
had greatly risen during his intimate connection with plumbers the last
two years. He thought the majority of the jobs now done in the city are
well executed. He believed that the Board of Health had not been obliged
to proceed against more than eight master plumbers since the new law
went into force. He called upon the Association to adopt a "code of
ethics," which should define what an honest plumber can do and cannot
do, and he illustrated his meaning by citing an extraordinary case of
fraudulent workmanship which had been recently reported to him. His
remarks on this point were greeted with frequent outbursts of applause.

* * * * *

THE PLANTAIN AS A STYPTIC.

The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:

"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
uninstructed persons."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10