Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/871

Rh Barker, Morton, Silliman, Caldwell, Goessmann, and many others, as well as the more practical endorsement of verdicts from the Judges of the Courts of Special Sessions and the jury of the General Sessions. At least fifteen thousand dollars has already been paid by milkmen in fines for watering and skimming milk. This investigation of the lactometer is important and interesting, for, while the Swiss and German investigators use it with the greatest confidence, the English analysts were shaken in their faith by the special pleading with which Wanklyn recommended his own method of analysis.

At the same time an investigation of the liquors sold in the commoner resorts was undertaken. The Metropolitan Excise Commissioners decided to withdraw the license of every one of the eight thousand dealers who should be found selling adulterated liquors. Professor Chandler was engaged to make the analyses on terms which might well have turned the head of any chemist. He was to receive twenty dollars for each analysis; there were eight thousand dealers, and there were likely to be three or four samples from each. But when he came to examine the first installment of forty samples of whisky, gin, rum, and brandy from Mulberry, Mott, Baxter, and other streets of that character, he was compelled to report that while the brandy was all factitious, and the basis of the others was common whisky, there was no adulteration in the sense of anything added of an injurious character. Some of them had been carelessly made and contained more fusel-oil than others, but the poisonous constituent was the alcohol. This ended the projected reform of the liquor-traffic by chemical analysis.

An effort was made to put a stop to the sale of poisonous cosmetics, especially the various preparations of lead salts which are employed either on the skin as a white enamel or upon the hair to restore the original color. His analyses were widely published.

The most important work of Professor Chandler was, however, the investigation of kerosene accidents, which were of very frequent occurrence, not only in New York, but wherever this cheap illuminator was used. It was supposed by the world at large that the accidents were an unavoidable incident to the use of the oil. Kerosene came in as a substitute for "camphene" or "burning-fluid," which was inherently dangerous and could not be made safe. Kerosene was supposed to be similar in chemical composition and properties, and the accidents were generally attributed to carelessness. In 1869 Chandler began his work on this subject, his first report to the Board of Health bearing date January 11th of that year. It was a simple statement of the chemical nature of petroleum and its products, explained the process for refining the oil, and clearly established the fact that the dangerous character of the oils in use was due to the fact that the refiners, in order to realize a profit of two or three cents per gallon, left a certain quantity of the highly inflammable naphtha in it. He also reported