Western Research Institute (WRI) has developed a facility to study gaseous emissions from a block reactor by sampling volatile trace metals, particulates, and gas condensates. The facility was recently used in two experiments to sample process off-gas from the retorting of an eastern oil shale. Those elements found in measurable quantities in the retort off-gas of the first experiment were silver, aluminium, arsenic, boron, calcium, sodium, iron, mercury, magnesium, molybdenum, phosphorus, selenium, silicon, and zinc. Elements detected in the second experiment were arsenic, boron, calcium, chromium, copper, sodium, iron, mercury, magnesium, nickel, phosphorus, and selenium. The off-gas samples in both experiments contained very low quantities of metals. There are probably several causes for the low recovery of metals. the most salient characteristic of the off-gas from eastern oil shale compared with that from western oil shale is the high concentration of sulfur. The amount of sulfur in the off-gas depends on the sulfur source, reaction, temperature, and steam injection rate. In these experiments, the presence of oxygen in the off-gas allowed the formation of subsequent precipitation of elemental sulfur, thus hampering accurate characterization of the sulfur species in the off-gas. 11 refs., 5 figs., 10 tabs.