stead of by one tube. He inferred that a sufficient quantity of air would thus be introduced into the lamp for the purposes of combustion, whilst the smallness of the apertures would still prevent the explosion passing downwards,

and at the same time, the "burnt air" (the cause, in his opinion, of the lamp going out) would be more effectually dislodged. He accordingly took the lamp to the shop of Mr. Matthews, a tinman in Newcastle, and had it altered so that the air was admitted by three small tubes inserted in the bottom of the lamp, the openings of which were placed on the outside of the burner, instead of having (as in the original lamp) one tube opening directly under the flame.

This second or altered lamp was tried in the Killingworth pit on the 4th of November, and was found to burn better than the first lamp, and to be perfectly safe. But as it did not yet come up entirely to the inventor's expectations, he proceeded to contrive a third lamp, in which he proposed to surround the oil vessel with a number of capillary tubes. Then it struck him, that if he cut off the middle of the tubes, or made holes in metal plates, placed at a distance from each other equal to the length of the tubes, the air would get in better, and the effect in preventing the communication of explosion would be the same. "I thought," he says, "that the air would have easier access, and the effect might be the same if I cut away the middle of the tubes; and that the flame, if it passed through the apertures at top, would not communicate the explosion to the hydrogen beyond the plate below. I constructed a lamp upon this principle, and found that, the holes having been punched very small, the flame never passed even through the first plate."*

Stephenson was encouraged to persevere in the completion

* A Description of the Safety Lamp, invented by George Stephenson, and now in use in the Killingworth Colliery. London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817, p. 8.

of his safety lamp, by the occurrence of several fatal accidents about this time in the Killingworth pit. On the 9th of November, a boy was killed by a blast in the A pit, at the very place where Stephenson had made the experiments with his first lamp; and, when told of the accident, he observed that if the boy had been provided with his lamp, his life would have been saved.

The third safety lamp, as finally designed by Stephenson, was in the hands of the manufacturer on the 24th of November, before he had heard of Sir Humphry Davy's experiments, or of the lamp which that gentleman proposed to construct. And this third lamp was finished, and tried in the Killingworth pit, on the 30th of the same month. On the 5th of December Stephenson exhibited it before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle; and shortly after it came into practical use in the Killingworth collieries. To this day it is in regular use there, under the name of the "Geordy Lamp," as contradistinguished from the "Davy;" and the Killingworth pitmen have expressed to the writer their decided preference for the "Geordy." It is certainly a strong testimony in its favour, that no accident is known to have arisen from its use, since it was first introduced into the Killingworth mines. With the addition of the wire-gauze over the glass cylinder, Mr. Stephenson expressed his conviction, before the Committee above referred to, that, so altered, his lamp is the safest for use, and superior to every other.*

* Report on Accidents in Coal Mines, 1835, p. 103.

113

CHAP. XI.

CONTROVERSY AS TO THE INVENTION OF THE SAFETY

LAMP.

ALTHOUGH the first Safety Lamp, adapted for practical use in the every-day work of coal-mining, was contrived by George Stephenson, the name of Sir Humphry Davy, as most readers are aware, has been generally identified with the invention. But a Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1835, after making a careful and detailed inquiry into the whole subject, distinctly stated that "The principles of its construction appear to have been practically known to Clanny and Stephenson, previously to the period when Davy brought his powerful mind to bear upon the subject." Not only, however, were the principles of its construction known to Stephenson, but he actually made a Lamp, the safety of which he demonstrated by repeated experiments, several months before Sir Humphry Davy had produced his Miner's Lamp, or published his views upon the subject.

Dr. Clanny had also constructed a Safety Lamp, before Stephenson had made the attempt, after a plan first suggested and tried by Humboldt. It was, to insulate the air within the lamp from the foul air in the mine, by means of water, and to keep up the supply of atmospheric air by the action of bellows. But this lamp, though safe, was found impracticable, and consequently was not adopted. What was

* Report on Accidents in Mines, Session 1835, p. vii. (Parliamentary Paper, 603.)

I

wanted was a lamp that the miners could easily carry about with them; that would give light enough to enable them to work by in dangerous places, and yet be safe. And such a lamp Stephenson was unquestionably the first to invent, construct, and prove. It will be observed, from what has been stated, that the plan which Stephenson adopted was to supply air to the flame of the lamp by means of small tubes. It afterwards appeared, from a paper published by Sir Humphry Davy in the following year*, that this was the idea which he contemplated embodying in his first lamp. But Stephenson had already ascertained the same fact, and confirmed it by repeated experiments with the two Safety Lamps which were constructed for him after the designs which he furnished. It is true, his theory of the "burnt air," and of "the draught,” was wrong; but his lamp was right. Torricelli did not know the rationale of his Tube, nor Otto Gürike that of his Air-pump; yet no one thinks of denying them the merit of their inventions on that account. discoveries of Volta and Galvani were in like manner independent of theory; the greatest discoveries consisting in bringing to light certain grand facts, on which theories are afterwards framed. Mr. Stephenson pursued the Baconian method, though he did not think of that, but of inventing a safe lamp, which he knew could only be done through a process of repeated experiment. He experimented upon the fire-damp at the blowers in the mine, and also by means of the apparatus which was blown up in his cottage, as above described by himself. By experiment he distinctly ascertained that the explosion of fire-damp could not pass through small tubes; and he also effected what had not before been done by any inventor-he constructed a lamp on this principle, and repeatedly proved its safety at the risk of his life. In a

*Philosophical Transactions for 1816, part i. p. 11.

The

letter published by Mr. Stephenson in the Philosophical Magazine *—the editor of which had given expression to the opinion that his attempts at safety tubes and apertures had been borrowed from what he heard of Sir Humphry Davy's researches, he challenged the editor to bring the evidence of facts and dates before the public, before venturing to dispute his veracity. "If fire-damp," said he, "were admitted to the flame of a lamp through a small tube,-that it would be consumed by combustion, and that explosion would not pass and communicate with the external gas, was the idea I had embraced as the principle on which a safety lamp might be constructed, and this I stated to several persons long before Sir H. Davy came into this part of the country. The plan of such a lamp was seen by several, and the lamp itself was in the hands of the manufacturer during the time he was here; at which period it is not pretended he had formed any correct idea upon which he intended to act. That I pursued the principle thus discovered and applied, and constructed a lamp with three tubes, and one with small perforations, without knowing that Sir Humphry Davy had adopted the same idea, and without receiving any hint of his experiments, is what I solemnly assert."

Indeed, it is perfectly clear, from the dates at which the results of Sir Humphry Davy's experiments with fire-damp were published, that it was simply impossible for Mr. Stephenson to have borrowed any of his ideas or plans. The latter, it will be remembered, had prepared the plan of his first safety-lamp as early as August, 1815, at which time Sir Humphry Davy had not given much consideration to the subject, nor formed any definite ideas upon it. On the 29th of September following, Davy wrote to the Rev. Mr. Hodgson, requesting a supply of fire-damp from a blower, and in

* Philosophical Magazine for March, 1817.