FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 245 



the electric light. The frictional electricity apparatus or electrical 

 machines, the first of which was invented in the seventeenth century, 

 had in them some of the elements which may have led to the dynamo 

 through a great series of discoveries in the first quarter of the nine- 

 teenth century. The latter is based upon the experiments of Henry 

 and of Faraday, who produced a dynamo in 1831, and Wheatstone 

 made in 1841 a dynamo which produced a continuous current. With 

 the dynamo, subject to many improvements, the electric light became 

 an economic fact. 



The arc light which had a relatively long development, preceded 

 the incandescent lamp by only a few years. The first use of the lat- 

 ter was in 1862. The arc light was perfected in 1878 by Brush. 

 This light was particularly fitted for larger illumination, and could 

 not be adapted for illumination of small units of space. It can be 

 likened to the great torches which lighted the streets of Rome, while 

 Edison's incandescent lamp, first exhibited in 1879, is like the little 

 Roman pottery lamp bringing light into intimate relationship with 

 the people. 



GAS 



The history of the economic utilization of gas is quite clear. In 

 1792 Mr. Murdock experimented on the production of gas from va- 

 rious substances, and hglited his own house with coal gas, and in 1797 

 lighted the Soho manufactory at Birmingham with the same fuel. 

 The Lyceum Theater, London, and a cotton factory at Manchester, 

 were hghted in 1803.''^ 



From these early installations there was a rapid progress to 

 lighting streets in cities, Pall Mall, London, in 1807, being the first. 

 Gas was introduced in the United States at Baltimore in 1821, 

 at Boston in 1822, and in New York in 1827. Natural gas, which 

 issues from the earth m many places, was used in China for a long 

 time. Klaproth speaks of the use of natural gas conducted in bam- 

 boo tubes for bm*ning in the city of Khiung-tsken.^^ 



The most noted gas emanations are at Baku, which have been 

 known for a long period (see Fire Worship). So far as is known the 

 natural gas at Baku and other locahties around the Caspian has . 

 never been used for practical purposes. 



CIVIC LIGHTING 



The lighting of cities, which was formerly hardly regarded as a 

 civic need, has become the chief feature of the industrial science of il- 

 lumination. Before the fifteenth century it appears that the streets 

 of cities at night were dark and that lanterns and torches were carried 

 by those who used the streets at such hours. 



« Progressive Age and- Water Gas Journal, PhJladelphia, 1888, p. 61 . 



«Asie Centrale. Also Humboldt, vo 3, I.Paris, 1843, pp. 519-530. For Japan see Griffls, Mikado's 

 Empire, p. 21 . 



