402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



this idea, as the Franklin Institute Journal rather waspishly pointed 

 out. "The task is not an agreeable one," it commented, "to inform 

 a person who believes he has drawn a prize, that a small mistake has 

 been made in his number" (1830, ser. 2, vol. 6, p. 15). It went on to 

 explain that a lamp made in Philadelphia 20 years earlier had em- 

 ployed the conduction principle and that another had followed. 

 What these lamps may have been cannot now be conjectured. 



Notwithstanding its lack of originality, the conduction device was 

 used over and over again, even though the patent claim in each case 

 was ostensibly for some other feature. Southworth's patent of 1842 

 is a case in point, where both a copper wick tube and copper conductor 

 strip were employed. Even as late as the following year, a chemist 

 named Campbell Morfit had seen fit publicly to recommend the substi- 

 tution of copper wick tubes for those of tin. 



In 1834 Samuel Davis designed a lard lamp that similarly included 

 copper parts in the burner. Davis's directions made it clear that 

 something more than a copper conductor was needed, however. "If 

 the lard lamp be cold, and there be no warm lard to start it, hold the 

 lamp upside down, and with a match let it burn until the burner gets 

 hot, then set the lamp down and put a little cold lard in the lid around 

 the wick." The implications of hardship and difficulty in the simple 

 act of lighting a lamp — an "improved" one, at that — are most interest- 

 ing to reflect upon. 



Delamar Kinnear, of Circleville, Ohio, patented a lamp in 1850 on 

 the basis of its shape. In addition to having a wide flat wick for 

 giving light, it included also a pilot burner from which a conductor 

 wire descended into the fuel supply. Many of Kinnear's lamps have 

 survived, indicating that they enjoyed some degree of success. 



The second group of lard lamps depended upon gravity as well 

 as heat conduction. Dexter S. Chamberlain's patent of 1854 prescribed 

 a tilting reservoir in which the oil supply was kept at a constant level 

 with the wick. The patent model is in the United States National 

 Museum collection (No. 251802). Moses Woodward's earlier patent 

 of 1842 also utilized this principle. Its functioning was described 

 by the Franldin Institute Journal (1844, ser. 3, vol. 7, p. 252) : "The 

 lard can be burned until it is nearly exhausted, for by the tilting of 

 the body of the lamp, the lard can be brought near to the ignited part 

 of the wick." 



The lamps of the third category were probably the least attractive 

 but the most effective. These employed mechanical pressure devices 

 to force the lard into the wick. An early and evidently popular ver- 

 sion was patented by Maltby & Neal, of Middlebury, Ohio, in 1842. 

 Their handsome patent model of brass with silver name plate (No. 

 251795) is illustrated in plate 8. Other examples of this lamp in tin 



