244 BULLETIN Ub, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Lamps have been found in the Canary Islands in ancient sites. 

 They are rudely cut from lava and sometimes have holes for 

 suspension. The finds of terra-cotta lamps were of one or multiple 

 wicks, and, as Doctor Verneau believes, imported.** 



ELECTRIC LIGHT 



The forms of lighting discussed in this work exhibit in the main 

 a long history and a slow development with a rapid culmination, 

 following in this respect a seeming law of progress. The electric 

 light has no long ancestry, but arises on the threshold of the inven- 

 tive age and completes its cycle in a short time, passing to the front 

 rank of illumination in a steep curve from its initial point. In the 

 inventive age the old law is abrogated. Its place is taken by a close- 

 knit correlation of ideas by which no invention is for itself alone but 

 is the starting point for some other invention, or its idea is incorpo- 

 rated into some more complex invention. In America the school of 

 invention was the frontier, where men far away from civilization 

 were forced to improvise; that is, to invent. 



The uncivilized man does not improvise. His seeming improvisa- 

 tions are only the result of ages of experience and custom, the han- 

 dhng of old, well-worn tools which may be contrasted with the way 

 in which civilized man juggles with his macliines, forming their 

 elements into new combinations for predetermined uses. The 

 modern inventor is free from the trammels of an effete civilization 

 and can use his keen mind and native mechanical ingenuity. The 

 American played checkers with his inventions. Superiority over 

 rivals was often a satisfying recompense. 



In speaking of the history of the invention of the electric light, it 

 must be premised that it has been difficult to keep pace with the 

 work carried on by investigators in different countries and to assign 

 the dates of important experiments which establish the history. The 

 illuminating quality of the electric spark or flash was a primary obser- 

 vation of all periods, and of no significance until the idea of a contin- 

 uous discharge was coupled with the idea of its application to illum- 

 ination. Many investigations were pursued and many inventions 

 preceded the fertile thought, as the machine for producing "frictional" 

 electricity and the Leyden jar and the battery. With these accom- 

 plished and furnishing a groundwork for the inventor, Sir Humphry 

 Davy, in 1808, constructed a battery of 2,000 terminal, to the cells of 

 which he attached pieces of charcoal, and when the carbons were 

 brought in apposition a bright spark was produced, and by regu- 

 lating the distance of the points a continuous discharge gave a bril- 

 liant arc of light nearly 4 inches in length. This was an expensive 

 experiment, but it brought out the possible economic attainments of 



« Revue d'Ethnographie, September-December, 1887, p. 377. 



