' OILS IN THEIR COMMERCIAL RELATIONS.—The solid animal oils found in commerce arc butter and lard, tallow, mares' grease, gopse grease, nents-foot oil, and unrefined yolk of egg oils. The two first are fully described under their names. See BUTTER, LARD. Tallow is the fat of oxen and sheep, but more especially the fat which envelops the kid neys and other parts of the viscera, rendered down or melted. The qualities of this solid oil render it particularly well adapted for making candles, and until the end of the first quarter of the present century, candles for ordinary use were almost wholly made of it, the high price of wax and spermaceti preventing their employment except by the most wealthy and for ecclesiastical purposes. Besides its use in making candles, tallow is most extensively used in the manufacture of soap. and for the purpose of preserving machinery from rust. The trade in tallow with Russia, which produces the best, and with North and South America, and eyen with India and other countries is very consid erable; but it is declining, owing of COtirSe to the extension of `gaS and time enormous development of therparaffin, and petroleum oils (q.v.), and other light-giving materials. The quantities of tallow and steariue imported in five recent years into Britain were as follows: Tons. Value.
1S71 1,247,064 £2,996,258 1872 . ..1,232,144 2,792,570 1873 1 527,321 3,847,271 1874 . 1,153,243 4,172,113 1875 967,396 4,338,106 The chief use of tallow in this country is now in the manufacture of soap (q.v ), and even in this it has yielded in importance to palm and cocoa-nut oils.
Mares' grease is not nearly so solid as tallow; it is a yellowish-brown grease, imported extensively from Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, where vast numbers of horses are slaughtered for their hides, bones, and grease; it is particularly valuable as a lubricant for machinery, and is chiefly employed for that purpose after much of its stearine has been removed for candle-making. 'Phe reason this material is called mares' grease is said to be from the circumstance that in South America horses are chiefly used alive, and mares are slaughtered as comparatively useless. Goose grease is another soft fat, much valued by housewives for many purposes, but excepting that it is sold in some districts as a remedial agent, it has no commercial importance. Nents-foot oil is a soft fat pro
cured in the preparation of the feet and intestines of oxen for food as sold in the tripe shops. The quantity obtained is not very great, but it is in much request by carriers for dressing leather. Yolk of egg oil is a hard oil, which, though little known in Britain, is extensively used in other countries where eggs are cheaper. In Russia, for instance, it is manufactured on so large a scale as to supply some of the largest makers of fancy soaps, and it forms the principal material in the celebrated Karon sk) ap; and certain pomades are made of it. which have a great reputation, and realize very high prices. This oil is not unlike palm-oil in color and consistency; but when refined is liquid; and has a reddish-yellow color. Its price at Moscow is as high as 8s. per lb.
The liquid animal oils are more numerous, and, excepting tallow, are far more impor tant. the so-called fish-oils being the principal. These are whale, porpoise, seal, cod, herring, shark, etc. The whales which are pursued for their oil are: 1. The sperm whale. This huge creature is from 60 to 70 ft. in length, and yields generally from 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of oil. The finest oil is taken from the great reservoir on the head. The oil of this species is all of a quality superior to others, and is known as sperm oil. For the method of procuring this oil, see OACHOLOT. 2. The right whale, which yields by far the largest proportion of whale oil. This, with that yielded by other less impor tant species, is usually called train oil. The term train is supposed to be a corruption of drain, and applies to the circumstance of the oil being drained out of the blubber; and in this sense it is also applied to sperm oil from the blubber of the cacholot, in contradis tinction to the finer oil from the head matter. The right whale forms the chief object of the northern fisheries, but other species of balmna are pursued in different parts of the world for the sake of their oil. See WHALE.