FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 221 



of this lamp the wick gutter was uncovered, and only in the latest 

 was it housed (pi. 40, figs. 1,6). 



LAMPS WITH WICK SPOUTS 



The next considerable step in advance was the employment of 

 lamps having a projecting spout in which the wick was put (pi. 40, 

 figs. 2, 3). Applied to the small classic lamps this feature was not 

 of great practical value, but to larger vessels there was some benefit 

 in the slight fluid pressure on the wick. Fluid pressure on the wick 

 is hinted at in the devices for tipping the simple basin lamps, and 

 this principle was perhaps long unconsciously practiced before it 

 before it became an established usage. 



The variation of the wick spout has produced innumerable forms 

 of this development of the edge of the reservoir. The Greco-Roman 

 lamps, manufactured by millions in terra cotta and bronze, can be 

 laid out, irrespective of date or place or reversions, to show stages in 

 the quasi development of the spout, reservoir cover, handle, foot, etc. 

 These series are not useless when considered as indicating a normal 

 genesis of the features mentioned. 



A fundamental fact is the covering over of the reservoir, which 

 has its effect later in the development of the lamp. No efforts are 

 seen to cover the reservoir of the circular saucer lamp, as this would 

 defeat its designed use. With the definite placing of the wick and 

 the growth of the beak appear numerous instances of partial cover- 

 ing of the reservoir in primitive lamps, culminating in the com- 

 plete incasing of the reservoir seen in the classic forms. The wick 

 spout also loses its untidy aperture and is pierced with a symmetrical 

 hole fitted with bronze tube having a collar holding it in place. 



Greco-Roman lamps were carefully conformed to the cultured taste 

 of the ancients, who developed this household necessity to a high 

 state of artistic excellence. Limpid olive oil was a lamp fuel by far 

 the best known at the period, and obviated the use of drip catchers 

 characteristic of the lamps of the northern peoples of less culture, 

 whose smoky lamps consumed nauseous fats and greases. 



The Greco-Roman nations also made lamps of two and several 

 spouts. These are found in later Roman sites. The Roman lamp 

 spouts show little tendency to depart from the horizontal or to be 

 developed in the sense of a tube curved upward near the end. The 

 wick, as in primitive lamps, was laid in the oil horizontally or in- 

 inclined slightl}^ and turned up only at the end where it was lighted. 

 The low capillarit}^ of the wicks notwithstanding the limpidness 

 of the fuel was such that a vertical wick was not practicable. 



With the fall of the Roman Empire illuminating apparatus again 

 took on the phases of folk art and invention reviving or perpetuating 

 crude types. Glazed pottery, glass, and metal, especially the latter, 

 were increasingly used as materials for lamps. There is noted also 



