The Month and Catholic Review Volume 33 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1878 Excerpt: ... insects of every description. We have here a long list of such tormentors, and one of the party found them too numerous and too indefatigable to be endured, and so returned home. It was evidently with some satisfaction that the fate was watched of swarms of the winged saiiba ant. These were quitting their homes to form other colonies at a distance, and the females were distended with eggs. Their journey, however, was very short and very tragically concluded, for flights of gulls overhead were making a hearty meal of them as each flew upward, and as long as daylight lasted it was not probable that a single ant, male or female, escaped. Mr. Brown does not favour his readers with a very full account of the scientific results of their expedition, but he certainly gives them a great deal of useful information in addition to the "amusing incidents, interesting characters, and mild adventures," which he promised in his Preface. II.--PETROLEUM, ITS HISTORY AND USES. Petroleum and the kindred substances, of which I shall treat in the present essay, are binary compounds of carbon and hydrogen. They are expressed by the chemical formula Cn H2n+2, and therefore are closely allied to the marsh gas C H4, which under the form of miasma, is so fatal to human life. Amongst them may be classed those familiar to us under the names of Petroleum, Naphtha, Benzine, Paraffin, Bitumen, mineral pitch, mineral essences, oils extracted from coal and schist, besides many others. Petroleum in its different forms is the most widely known of these natural products. It is of a highly complex nature, and many hundreds of hydro-carburets, all perfectly distinct from one another, are alike capable of being extracted by the process of distillation from the raw petroleum. Inquiry with regard t...