| Show promontory ASPHALT OIL in the last issue of the mining review mention was made of the effort that was being made by the utah oil liquid asphalt company of ogden to handle the product of its wells on the promontory of the great salt lake and attention was called to the fact that the company had introduced a steam coil into one of its wells with the result that the asphalt oil had been liquefied to such an extent that a flow of from to gallons daily resulted since then fr the eminent chemist and geologist has made exhaustive experiments on samples of the asphaltum oil and his report has been submitted to the company his determinations briefly stated being in part as follows light and heavy oils solid bitu ment gum asphalt mineral parts sand etc and moisture total fr describes the promontory asphalt oil product as follows color velvet black decidedly at common temperature with slight indications of sul phu rated hydrogen gas but when heated and atter the evolution of some pungent gasses has ceased which will soon take place the peculiar but not disagreeable smell of asphalt is noticed at common temperature 65 75 F it represents itself as a thick pasty mass yielding moderately by heating at F it is a fluid but not sooner than F it shows the liquidity of water boiling commences at 1 very noteworthy is the following at P F it begins to foam which is caused by the evolution of some gasses carbonic acid gas light hydrocarbon hydro carbon and finally of some steam with increasing tendency to boil bof over this ceases however at about F and is entirely over at F at P F a slight decomposition takes place which is made remarkable by the evolution of a small quantity of products repeated experiments have proved that this can be avoided by taking care that the sides of the vessel in which the substance is distiller are not overheated over heated having reached the boiling point F a more and more asphalt smell is noticed kept at the first boiling point for about half an hour it somewhat thickens which is caused by evaporation of oily constituents after which the boiling point can be increased to F without fear that decomposition will take place at F this takes place boiled at for about three quarters of an hour during which c h some more oil escapes the mass now represents liquid asphalt which after cooling to 70 F represents gum asphalt of superior quality since it is not only of more than common hardness but also of a greater than the common tenacity the name oil for the crude substance I 1 find is not well adapted since its thick pasty constituency brings it into the class which by experts in germany is more correctly denominated as mountain or rock tar 9 the report of fr is too lengthy to be reproduced in its entirety but in conclusion he states that after almost all of the oil has been distilled from the as chait oll oil product the remaining hard gum asphalt is excellent in quality for street paving since it is of the required hardness and tenacity while it can be used with the best of success in the manufacture of hard india rubber articles in the making of first class black varnish for iron pipes columns bridges insulators and in the manufacture of asphalt paper and many other articles of a similar nature |
