246 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



In Amsterdam horn lanterns on posts were street lights in 1699. 

 In Paris fallots or vessels bm*ning pitch, resin, or other combustibles 

 were street hghts in 1588. 



"No general system of lighting was inaugm-ated in Venice till 1719, 

 when the Merceria had lamps put on it. In 1720 lighting was ex- 

 tended to the whole city. Before this, in 1450, a few lamps were 

 kindled under the arcades for part of the night. In 1128 the only 

 light on the streets was an infrequent shrine lamp.'*^ 



In London in the early fifteenth century, by edict of Henry V, 

 householders were required to hang out a lantern during the dark of 

 the moon for the period between Michelmas and Lady Day until 11 

 o'clock at night. After 1736 oil lamps were installed in place of the 

 horn "lanthorn" and this marks the taking up of the work by the 

 city. 



Generally in the first stages of civic hghting such illumination as 

 was furnished was due to individual effort and expense and to the 

 need of identification of inns and other enterprises whose business was 

 extended into the night. Later some beginning system was adopted 

 which led to public lighting. The beginning of engineering require- 

 ments for civic lighting is seen in the use of gas. The growth and 

 complexity of this feature have become enormous. 



ILLUMINANTS 



The lamp is usually treated as an object of material culture and 

 described as to its locality, material, form, art, and period. It has 

 not been considered in relation to the illuminants for which it was 

 devised and which kept it for ages a simple contrivance furnishing a 

 meager light. The history of the exploitation of illuminants for the 

 lamp, were it written, would yield to no other subject in variety, 

 color, and also economic interest. 



The materials suitable for burning in lamps would be classed as 

 natural, crude, refined, and artificial, and be of mineral, animal, and 

 vegetal origin. 



MINERAL 



There is more historical data on mineral lamp fluids than on any 

 other class. Native naphtha was used from an early period in Persia. 

 This mineral oil issues on the eastern and western shores of the Cas- 

 pian Sea and has been knov/n for ages. In the thirteenth century 

 Marco Polo speaks of it and its use for bm*ning by neighboring 

 nations. The Baku region was the center of the fire worship of the 

 Magi (see Fire Worship). In the life of Alexander, Plutarch states 

 that fire issues in a continuous stream at Ecbatana in Persia, and 

 he also discourses on the uses and properties of naphtha.*^ 



" Thomas Okey. The Old Venetian Palaces, London, 1907, p. 259. 

 *> Plutarch's Lives, vol. 2, pp. 49*-496. 



