Boghead Coal

Boghead Coal, Torbanite, or Torbane Hill Mineral, is, or rather was, a valuable source of paraffin. It is amorphous, yellow or light-brown, soft and light, its hardness being 1.5 to 2, and its gravity 1.28. Its composition is 60 to 65 per cent. carbon, 9 hydrogen, 4 or 5 oxygen, the remainder being aluminium silicate, and the microscope shows it to consist of granules of a yellow wax in shaley matter. It yields a larger amount of luminous hydrocarbons than any cannel coal, giving upwards of 120 gallons of crude oil from a ton. It occurred at Boghead, Torbane Hill, and elsewhere in Linlithgow, where since 1860 it has been nearly exhausted; in the Lower Greensand in the Isle of Wight; at Pilsen in Bohemia, and in Russia. In 1853 it gave rise to a lengthened lawsuit, involving the definition of the term coal.