From Fraser's Magazine.

BENZOLE.*

been trampled out by the soldier's heel. The processes of Nature are not stopped-the laws through which God rules his universe preserve their resistless sway; yet Nature yields herself to those who know how, ministering, to subdue-yet she sings to those who have ears to hear her ever-murmuring voice. In the realm of Physical Science-that other agriculture-the husbandmen are still delving and ploughing, still reaping and bringing in their harvests. Professors may here and there get imprisoned or shot, but though some ripe crop of observation may thus be trampled out, it is but a temporary and partial fallow in a soil teeming with fruitful powers, which a little loving labor will cause to burst forth plenteously once more.

IN February, 1848, we were speeding towards Paris by the first train which entered that city on the Havre railway line after the revolution-our anxieties far outstripping the tardy powers of steam, And we well remember how strange, and yet soothing, was the sight, on the morrow of that great overthrow somewhere between Havre and Rouen, we could not afford to mark where of a peasant ploughing the soil for the spring crops, and stopping his horse awhile to gaze at the train. It seemed to tell of a something abiding and steadfast amidst the crash of thrones-of that great ocean of domestic life, to whose still depths the storm reaches not, however it may rage at the surface of that great duty of replenishing the earth and subduing -capable of watching, month after month, for, we

it, which precedes and survives the "right" of insurrection alike and of repression of that great promise, as true and as living now as when first breathed over the ground scarce rescued from the flood, "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."

Feelings somewhat of this nature come again upon us, as we turn aside for a moment from the contemplation of that great revolutionary drama, to which the "days of February" served as it were but for a prologue, to a work of pure science like the one before us. France may be busily occupied with the parody of the last half-century of her history-her mock republic seemingly about to give way to a mock empire, (complete already save in name,) and that in turn no doubt to a mock restoration, and that again perhaps to a mock July monarchy; South Germany may be quivering with the last shocks of the late outbreak of atheistic radicalism; in Hungary a few brave spirits may be still carrying on the struggle, now hopeless, of a noble people, not only for themselves, but for all Europe, against the swelling flood of Russian barbarism ; Rome may be delivered over to the perplexed and grotesque perfidy of French intervention; Venice may have fallen, silent and unhelped; Switzerland and Turkey may be already threatened in their existence by the tide of so-called conservative reäction. We ask, with awe, where will the overthrow cease? Congresses may spout and maunder about peace, but war is smoking or smouldering on all sides. And yet the very tempest is but superficial. Grace will soon "smile forth again from ruin," according to the expression of one of the first, though least-noticed, of sonneteers, Wilhelm von Humboldt. A year or two more, and the corncrops will wave again luxuriant in the plains of Hungary over the bones of Cossack and Magyar alike, thicker even than if the parent ears had never

*1. Benzole; its Nature and Utility. By Charles Blachford Mansfield, M. A. Cantab. London: John W. Parker.

2. "Researches on Coal-tar," by Charles Blachford Mansfield, B. A., in the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society of London, vol. i., p. 244. Baillière. + Und Anmuth lacht aus dein Ruine wieder. - Die Nymphe.

CCLXXXVIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXΙΙΙ. 24

Here is a man-although he does not tell us of it

believe, upwards of a year, the distillation of coaltar in a retort. By thus making himself, as it were, the servant of Nature in her processes-by patiently waiting upon the successive phases of disintegration of one of the common products of our coalfields, he becomes in turn able thoroughly to subdue the subject of his experiments, and make it fruitful of all sorts of wonderful births. First he draws from coal-tar the ordinary products of the imperfect commercial distillation of this substance-a distillation which, as he tells us in his Researches, is a regular branch of trade, and is usually carried on in large iron retorts capable of holding many hundred gallons. These products (after getting rid of some permanent gases and ammoniacal compounds) are three in number-naphtha, or light oil," which floats; "dead oil," which sinks in water; pitch, which solidifies by cooling, and "is applied to the purposes of making asphalte, &c., or, when dissolved in a part of the fluid oily distillate, to the production of a black varnish, much used for iron-work." Then he breaks up each product again, and shows us that it is but a bundle

of other substances still more distinct and various.

From the black pitch there comes a yellow powder (chrysene); a wax-like substance (paranaphthaline); an extremely hard, cellular coke, difficult of combustion, and approaching to pure carbon. From the "dead oil," which " is used chiefly for burning into lamp-black, for coarse lamps or torches, and for the preservation of timber by impregnating it with the oil," come other substances, including another wax-like solid (naphthaline). Of this we are told, (Researches, p. 4, note,) that it " may be procured in enormous quantities at many of the tar works, where it is deposited, mixed with paranaphthaline, by the oils distilled from the tar, in granular crystalline masses, called 'salts' by the workIt is there thrown away as useless, or, at best, burned for lamp-black; and yet it is honored in our chemical catalogues with a price of four or five shillings per ounce." What a slur upon our chemical science, to have remained till now thus ignorant of the proceedings of our industrial chemist! The naphtha again brings forth an abundant progeny-solid "carbolic acid," (or, in its impure state, creosote,) so caustic as to destroy the skin of

men.

the hand if touched; poisonous oils, such as "ani-acts upon the benzole by making it crystallize in a line," of which a few grains are enough to kill a beautiful snow-like mass, at the freezing-point of rabbit, (whilst its property of giving a blue color water; whilst its congeners remain unaffected, the to hypochloride of lime makes it a valuable reägent,) law of chrystallization at definite temperatures or such as the peculiarly foul-smelling "picoline;" being as steadfast as that of volatilization. And harmless oils, such as " cymole," " cumole," this completes the education of our substance. "toluole," our "benzole"-all of which, as their How to use it is next the question. It is easily names import, occur elsewhere in nature; the cy-inflammable; will it serve as a source of artificial mole and cumole being derived from cumin seed, light? At first sight one would say not. "It is the toluole from tolu balsam, the benzole from ben- found by experiment, that the proper proportions zoic acid-yet all differing in properties amongst of carbon and hydrogen for a light-fuel to be burned

themselves; the cumole, for instance, extinguishing flame; the benzole taking fire before the match reaches its surface. And, lo! amidst all this confusion appears the great ternary law of Nature. All these substances are either neutral, acid, or basic; the neutral abundant in quantity, many in number, ("like the workers in a bee-hive," our author tells us-a suggestive and beautiful comparison,) of innocuous properties, and, until combined with sulphur, generally of fragrant smell; the basic and the acid, few, fetid, and poisonous-the former, to use our author's luminous expression, governed by "affinity," and affording "a symbol of family life" by their tendency " to dissolve or be dissolved in each other, without any change in their nature or the formation of a new substance;" the latter governed by a sort "of bipolar attachment," which invests them with a peculiar tendency to unite with each other and form new compounds, "intolerant of plurality," making them thus "the very type of connubial life."

in the open air, are those of an equal number of equivalents of these elements." Now benzole contains twice as much carbon as hydrogen; and, accordingly, a wick soaked in it and set fire to, evolves volumes of dense smoke, indicating the excess of carbon. Some special contrivance is therefore needed; and its purpose must be, that of mixing "with the vapor of benzole some other vapor or gas containing less carbon, without increasing the actual quantity of material passing out for combustion in a given time." Alcohol will serve for this purpose, or wood-spirit, or carbonic oxide, or hydrogen itself, or, last and cheapest, atmospheric air. It is this latter mixture which constitutes Mr. Mansfield's light, the principle of which is simply the use of common air, charged with benzole vapor, as a substitute for coal-gasbenzole evaporating at a very low temperature, viz. 176° Fahrenheit. Of the brilliancy of the flame thus obtained, none who have witnessed it can entertain a doubt. But the evaporation of the oil producing cold, the quantity of vapor produced would be always diminishing, and thereby impair

Very curious is it, although it could hardly be explained without the use of plates and tables, to note the peculiar processes, the shifts and contriv-ing the light, which finally would disappear, if ances, (all of his own devising, though again he some process of regulation were not adopted so as will not say so,) by which our chemist seeks to get to keep the temperature of the benzole reservoir rid of this "family relationship" of the liquid constant. This is effected by means of an ingenhydrocarbons of coal-tar, which will adhere to-ious apparatus termed a "thermostat," the object gether, both in the liquid and aëriform state; the of which is, to direct a small jet of flame upon the volatile benzole, at first kept liquid, notwithstand- evaporating vessel from the moment that its teming the application of heat, by its heavier brethren perature begins to fall. The cost of the benzole toluole, &c., and when it does pass into vapor, light, as was stated in a paper by Mr. Mansfield, carrying away a portion of toluole with it. And "On a new system of Artificial Illumination," yet these shifts and contrivances are in themselves read at the Institution of Civil Engineers, (see The not arbitrary, but are the mere applications of Pharmaceutical Journal for May, 1849,) will probsome general law, through which alone nature ably not exceed four shillings per gallon of benconsents to obey the will of man. First, distilla- zole, equivalent to one thousand cubic feet of coaltion by heat is resorted to, the principle of which gas. One ounce of benzole is calculated to give is that every liquid volatile without decomposition "a light equal to four wax candles, of four to the has a boiling-point as fixed as that of water; so that "nothing can be more striking than to observe We need not dwell here upon the other uses of all these substances, at all times and places, punc- benzole, manifold though Mr. Mansfield shows tually obeying the law impressed upon them at them to be; whether as a source of heat in the their formation, and (as soon as the temperature blow-pipe; as a solvent of all true oils insaturable and pressure on their surface reach the coördinate in water, and, under certain circumstances, even points which have been assigned to each of them) of the most intractable resins; as a cheap substiassiduously commencing to boil off into vapor." tute for ether, which it nearly resembles in its Then we need a reägent to get rid of impurities- nature and properties, and may replace as an sulphuric acid, for instance, which refuses to unite anesthetic. Mixed with concentrated nitric acid,

with benzole, whilst it combines at once with most of the other substances which are likely to be found joined to it. Lastly, cold must be employed, combined with pressure--the application of which

pound, for one hour."

it produces a new substance, called Nitrobenzole,

* Of the abundance of the product there is no doubt. "It may be procured to any extent," Mr. Mansfield tells us in his Researches, "from coal-tar, or from the light naphtha."

of a most fragrant smell, similar to that of oil of bitter almonds, though without its poisonous qualities, and which, therefore, may be most usefully employed as a perfume or flavor. The nitrobenzole thus obtained, like the, benzole, which forms the chemical atoms, as it were, of which it is made

one of its constituents, is still neutral, has no up. For him the word "complete," spells c, o, special "attachment" or craving for acid or alkali. m, com, p, 1, e, t, e, plete, and nothing more. But But the "nitrogen which we have inserted becomes a new centre of vitality, the germ of new tendencies." Mix nitrobenzole with hydrochloric acid, no mutual action takes place; add zinc filings to the mixture, and by the decomposition of the acid hydrogen is given off, which "in its so called nascent state, at the first moment of separation, has

powers which, when collected and kept, it can found in use, but which is clearly proved to be

There appears, to an unlearned reader like ourself, as the water which we drink, as the metals which something deeply interesting in the new views we handle; just as Hamlet and Cordelia, as Don