72 BULLETIN 141^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



lamps which should have become obsolete held on till machinery- 

 should make luxuries necessities. 



The investigations at the beginning of the modern oil lamp had 

 to do with wicks, the delivery of oil to the wicks, aeration of the 

 flame, and draft in the burner. The problem of suitable oil was 

 also very difficult. Inventors earnestly worked to make the lamp 

 efficient. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century the lamps 

 produced had failed in competition with the Argand with its im- 

 provements. The Argand supplies oil to the wick by gravity, and 

 when regulated by a valve is delivered at the rate of combustion, j 

 The collection of the relics of George Washington in the National j 

 Museum includes three lamps of this kind. One of these has tubular 

 chimneys of blue glass, the globes missing. It is of silver plate and 

 is without marks. The other lamps are a pair of silver plate wall, 

 or possibly desk, lamps, without glassware and marks.^ If these 

 lamps were used in Mount Vernon during the decade before the death 

 of Washington, they would be perhaps the earliest Argands to which 

 a date could be assigned. It can only be ventured that the style and 

 workmanship of these lamps, especially the two-light specimen, 

 appears early. The astral lamp of our forefathers was an Argand 

 of sturdy English manufacture in which labor and material was not 

 spared to make a practicable and enduring product, though less can 

 be said on the point of art. The astral had an extended use among 

 the first families, and from their indestructible character, as stated, 

 and their preservation as ornamental objects for the mantelpiece 

 many have survived to this day. The fine specimen shown on Plate 

 65a, Figure 2, bears a metal label sweated on the wick tube, " J and I 

 Cox, New York." This inscription was put on in England for the 

 New York vendor. The lamp is massive brass in French rococo 

 style. Even without the lusters, globes, chimneys, and fittings it is 

 an imposing object. (Cat. No. 150434, Baltimore, Md.; T. W. Swee- 

 ney; 24 inches (61 cm.) high, 13.8 inches (35 cm.) wide.) Astral 

 lamps were in sets of three, a central two-burner and side one-burner, 

 following the candelabra mantel sets, indicating the special and 

 formal lighting usages of a past period. Plate 66a, Figure 1, is of 

 a side lamp of a set of heavy brass gilt. The set is in good condi- 

 tion and lacks lusters and globes. The globe and chimney support 

 engages the collar containing the wick, which is raised and lowered 

 by turning the support. The lusters were hung from a corona, by 

 which it could be lifted off when the reservoir needed filling. The 

 handle of the shut-off valve is seen below the reservoir. The lamp 

 is inscribed " Manufactured for T. Palmer, Baltimore." (Cat. No. 



^T. T. Belote. Descriptive Catalogue of the Washington Relies In the U. S. National 

 Museum. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 49, 1915, pp. 1-24. 



