Oils from petroleum are now produced suitable for nearly every mechanical process for which animal oils have heretofore been used, not excepting those intended for cylinder purposes. A serious objection attaching to the animal oils is present in petroleum. If, through the exhaust steam, some of the oil be carried into the boiler, foaming or priming is the consequence, but the same thing happening in the case of petroleum is rather a benefit than otherwise, for it not only does not cause foaming, but it prevents incrustation or adhesion of the scale or deposit, and this aids in the preservation of the boiler, and is perhaps the best preventive of the many everywhere suggested.

Often, in removing the cylinder head and the plate covering the valves of an engine, we see evidences of corrosion or action on the surfaces, differing entirely from ordinary wear, and the engineer is generally at a loss how to account for it. According to the general impression grease or animal oil is the preservative of the metal, and is the last thing suspected of being the cause of its general disintegration. The reason of this is that vegetable and animal oils consist of fatty acids, such as stearic, magaric, oleic, etc. They are combined with glycerin as a base, and, under ordinary conditions, are neutrals to metals generally, and on being applied they keep them from rusting by shielding them from the action of air and moisture. But in the course of time the influence of the air causes decomposition and oxidation, the oils become rancid, as it is called, which is acid, and they act on the metals. What happens at the ordinary temperature slowly goes on rapidly in the steam cylinder, where a new condition is reached. The oils are subjected to the heat of high pressure steam, which dissociates or frees these acids from their base, and in this condition they attack the metal and hence destroy it.

This applies as well to vegetable as to oils of animal origin, fish or sperm oil included. Petroleum and oils derived therefrom (generally called mineral oils) are entirely free from this objection. Petroleum contains no oxygen, and hence it cannot form an acid, and therefore cannot attack metal. It is entirely neutral, and so bland that it may be and is used medicinally as a dressing to wounds and badly abraded surfaces where cerates of ordinary dressing would give pain.—Coal Trade Journal.