OILS

(Germ, oehle.) The term oil is applied to two di imilar and distinct organic products, which are usually called fixed oils and volatile oils. The fixed or fat oils are either of vegetable or animal origin; they are compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; the relative proportions vary but little in the several species. The following analyses of olive and spermaceti oil may be a umed as types of the rest: Olive Oil. Spermaceti Oil. Carbon 772 780 Hydrogen 133 118 Oxyger.... 95 102 1000 1000 The fixed oils abound in the fruit and seed of certain plants; they are lighter than water, unctuous, and insipid, or nearly so; some of these require a low temperature for their congelation, such as linseed oil; others, such as olive oil, concrete at a temperature higher than the freezing point of water; some are solid at common temperatures, such as cocoa-nut oil. Some of these oils when exposed to air absorb oxygen, and gradually harden, forming a kind of varnish;these are called drying oils, and are the basis of paints, such as linseed oil; others become rancid, as almond oil. All these oils, like the different kinds of fat, consist of two proximate principles, called stearine and elaine: the former is the fatty portion, which first concretes on cooling the oil, and from which the elaine, or oily portion, may be separated by pre ure. These oirs cannot be volatilized without decomposition. At a red heat they are resolved into volatile and gaseous products, among which carburetted hydrogen,in several of its forms, predominates; hence the use of these oils, when volatilized and burned by the aid of a wick, as sources of artificial light. The action of the alkali on the fat oils is highly important, as forming soap. The volatile oils are generally obtained by distilling the vegetables, which afford them, with water; they fluctuate in density a little on either side of water: they are sparingly soluble in water, forming the perfumed or medicated waters, such as rose and peppermint water; they are mostly soluble in alcohol, forming e ences. A few of them, such as oil of turpentine, of lemon peel, of copivi balsam, , are hydrocarbons,that is, consist of carbon and hydrogen only; the greater number, however, contain oxygen as one of their ultimate elements. They are chiefly used in medicine and in perfumery, and a few of them are extensively employed in the arts as vehicles for colours, and in the manufacture of varnishes; this is especially the case with oil of turpentine. of OISANITE.Oise. An ore of titanium, from the department OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN The chief of the band A a ins* who established themselves in the moun- * There are few words whose etymology has exercised, and at the mat time baffled the ingenuity of the learned, more than this. Perhaps the following may not be very remote from the truth. Throughout all the East a preparation of hemp is universally used to exhilarate the spirits by a luxurious species of intoxication. This is known to the Orientals hy the name of 'lairMM, and848those who are addicted to it are called has chis chin and has [s. 862]