kristinawood.com ~ View topic

Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 1000

Oh, I remember a bit of historical chemistry if you're still curious about that gasoline thing, Caroline.

Petroleum refining started long before the use of gasoline powered vehicles. Crude oil is a mixture of all sorts of different chemicals, so refineries merely distilled and separated the crude into refined fractions. Basically, mixtures of that were subsets of the original crude. Early on, this was done to turn the crude into heavy fuel oil for steam enginers, furnaces, and power plants, kerosene for lamps and stoves, and other useful chemicals such as tar, asphalt, petroleum jelly, etc.

Gasoline was one of the mixtures produced by the refining process. Until the internal combustion engine was invented, it was considered a fairly useless byproduct of oil refining. Too volatile for use as a heat fuel, doesn't burn so clean as kerosene, and was chemically uninteresting. So it was dirt cheap and refineries were pretty desperate to get rid of it, making it something easy to experiment with.

Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 2173

((Hey all,

Okay, another mini-batch of curiosity dealing with 1895

1) How common were motion / moving pictures? I know we have one Royal who is a film maker, but were the pictures actually movies at 1895? I've been under the impression that in 1895, motion was simulated, by having a spinning wheel with pictures inside it. You spin the wheel, and it gives the illusion of motion, as the pictures rapidly display across the screen tricking your eye into thinking the still-pictures are moving.

2) I know ice was big business back in 1895, as ice preserved food/fish. Shoot, we still have refrigeration companies locally in Cleveland, such as Olmstead Falls Ice. Anyway, did we ever have anyone in Bon Bon who was an ice-man?

3) Along those same lines, what about a confectionary? Or someone who deals in Italian Ice or Gellato (sp?). Or even a plantation owner for tropical fruits like pineapples, mangos, and limes. I would think that, as a resort-tourist-town, Bon Bon would be a haven for such specialty foods as that. We have a pastry chef... but no ice-cream maker. And, yes, I know that "Gellato" isn't ice-cream.

4) Rail-road question. I'm not sure if this was asked before, but were their any international rail-regulatory bodies, or was it pretty much "every country for themselves?" For that matter, how big of an impact is the rail in Europe.

5) Gardens. I know gardens were a big way to supplement foodstuffs around the house. What sorts of herbs, vegetables, fruits were grown in gardens in Europe?

Anyway, just some oddball questions, I had. ))

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/scorpia/ · Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 1836

Rank: Super Veteran Joined: 07 Nov 2009 Posts: 2846

I've wondered was the radio,phonograph, or record player created in 1895, or before?