In 1879 the new Act legalised Sir Frederick Abel's tester and then fixed the flash-point at what was called the " equivalent" of the old 100 deg.—in other words, it reduced the flash-point by 27 deg., the amount of the inac curacy of the old tester. The effect, of course, was to perpetuate the blunder of the 1867 Act in another way. It is as though a man, finding that his watch lost 27 minutes in a day, bought a new and accurate timekeeper and then pur posely put it back 27 minutes.
The history of this bureaucratic juggle was effectively summarised by Mr. Ure in the House of Commons, March 15, 1899: In 1862 there was a correct flash-point (100 deg.) fixed, and no tester for ascertaining it.
In 1868 there was a correct flash-point (100 deg.) and an in correct tester for ascertaining it.
In 1879 there was a correct means (the Abel tester) of finding out an incorrect flash-point (73 deg.).
Now we demand a correct flash-point (100 deg.) and a correct means of finding it out.
To this day all petroleum which flashes at 73 deg. Fahr. in the Abel tester is subject to no restrictions of any kind, and lamp accidents and oil fires have carried off hundreds of lives since 1879. Lord Kelvin, surely a high authority, said to the Select Committee in 1906 :— It seems to me that the logical outcome of Sir Frederick Abel's work ought to have been to declare that the 100 deg. test in force in the 1871 Act must be fulfilled by a proper close test. I cannot think how Sir Frederick Abel dropped from 100 deg. to 73 deg.
Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, in his " Life of Lord Kelvin " (vol. ii. p. 962), tells us :— Lord Kelvin felt strongly on this question. In 1868 an open test-cup was legalised which in practice proved to be erroneous to an average extent of 27 degrees. In other words, oil which was actually giving off explosive vapour at 73 Fahr. did not flash in this open cup until it reached 100 deg. The number of fires due to paraffin lamps increased owing to the introduction of cheap low-flash oils. In spite of this, in 1879, when a new and more efficient test was adopted, the flash-point was by a scandalous manceuvre reduced to 73 deg.
It is interesting to recall that in the experi ments which Sir Frederick Abel made during the period when the Abel tester and the difference between its results and those of the 1868 tester were under investigation, he was assisted by Mr.
Boverton Redwood, the chemist of the Petroleum Association. But the delicate operation of sub
stituting a lower flash-point when the tester was made more accurate seems to have been carried out mainly by the assistance of the then Chief Inspector of Explosives, the late Colonel V. Majendie, a soldier and a gentleman, who was no match for the adroit and suave agents of the petroleum trade. It was perhaps not unfitting that the administration of the laws relating to Mr. Rockefeller's low-flash petroleum should have been placed under the Explosives Department of the Home Office, but it had this disadvantage, that Colonel Majendie, well acquainted with military explosives, knew nothing about petro leum. He once declared at the Imperial Insti tute in my hearing that he had learned all he knew about petroleum from Mr. Redwood. How completely he was guided by his mentor in this matter appears from a memorandum of July 18, 1878, in which he gives his reasons for supporting the reduction of the flash-point from 100 deg. to 73 deg. In it he wrote :— The figure is one to which the Petroleum Association, the body really interested, are prepared to assent, and although the Scottish Mineral Oil Association desire a higher flashing point, it is really a matter in which they have very little concern, except in so far as the adoption of a higher flashing point will tend to injure their trade rivals (the Petroleum Association). I think, therefore, that as the matter cannot be usefully carried further, the Abel test of 73 deg. Fahr. flashing point should be accepted.
Mr. Redwood was at this period the paid secretary of the Petroleum Association, and had returned only six months before from his American trip. Sir Vivian Majendie seems never to have been able to consider the public ; in his view it was all a trade squabble between the rival oil traders. I ought to explain here, by the way, that the Scottish refiners have always kept their oil up to a flash-point of 100 (Abel), their reason being that they desired to maintain a perfectly safe standard. They have always complained of the invasion of this 73 deg. American petroleum, not on ordinary com mercial grounds, but because they held that its dangerous and explosive character was prejudi cing the public mind against all classes of burning oils, and neutralising their own efforts to give the public confidence in them.