218 BULLETIN 139^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



2. Lamp, Unworked beach stone with concavity, supphed with 

 fiber wick and oil. Aleuts, Alaska. 



2. Lamp made from the skull of a sheep. 



4. Lamp. Hollowed beach stone with moss wick arranged along 

 one edge. Eskimos, Alaska. 



5. Lamp. Pecten shell with oil and wick of rush pith. Ainor 

 Japan. Shell lamp suspended, Orkney Islands. 



6. Lamp. Terra cotta saucer. India. 



7. Lamps. Examples with gutter for wick. Example with several 

 gutters. Syria and India. 



8. Lamp. Of terra cotta. Reservoir almost closed over; spout 

 for wick. Roman. 



9. Lamp. Of terra cotta. Reservoir closed over; spout for wick. 

 Roman. 



10. Lamp. Of brass. Reservoir mounted on rod and stand; 

 several spouts. Italian. 



11. Lamp. Designed to furnish oil to the wick under pressure. 

 Cape Cod, Mass. 



12. Lamp. Of glass, having two tubes; for burning whale oil. 

 United States. 



13. Lamp. With chimney; draught around the Avick and oil under 

 pressure. Argand's invention. United States. 



14. Lamp. With chimney and Argand burner; oil under forced 

 pressure of a spring. France. 



15. Lamp. "Fluid" or camphine burned by means of wick and 

 tubes and without chimney. United States. 



16. Gas burner. United States. 



QUASI-PRIMITIVE LAMPS 



Lamps of rude character appertaining to the prehistoric Aleuts 

 were found in the graves and kitchen middens of the Aleutian chain 

 by Dr. W. H. Dall. These lamps are beach stones, slightly weath- 

 ered, of convenient size and having a natural concavity. The type 

 specimen shows traces of its use on a portion of the edge where a 

 wick was laid, as in the Eskimo lamp. This lamp would appropri- 

 ately begin the series. There is, however, no surety that this rude 

 form did not exist contemporaneously with finished lamps in the 

 Aleut area. 



Extemporized lamps of sea shells have a logical background in the 

 suggestiveness of the shape of the shell. The shell of Fm-us antiqus 

 is a case in point, the troughlike extension of the lip of the shell 

 being a ready-made slot for the wick and the body of the shell 

 forming a reservoir when the shell is suspended horizontally. Lamps 

 of the fusus were used in the Orkney and Shetland Islands®^ (pi. 39, 

 figl)- 



«=' Information sent by Henry Balfour, Oxford, England. 



