Genre:

Essay, Travelogue, Serial

Subjects:

Industrial Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals, Nomenclature

    While visiting the Dutch fishing village of Katwyk, notes the 'powerful fragrance of crude petroleum that filled the place' (526), and observes that 'In Holland they simply revel in all the varieties of things that can be made from that wonderful but penetrating and pungent article. I think the fire was made from it; the knives and forks were cleaned with it. The grocer himself had taken some of it for his cold, and the apprentice, who was also waiter, had copiously anointed his shiny head with it. They don't seek to disguise it in Katwyk with the pretty names of vaseline, but they take it as it is, and love it for itself' (526–28). The offer of a salad is later rejected 'because I felt sure that it would be mixed with vaseline and vinegar' (528).