232 Sir Frederick Abel [March 13, 



the reservoir through a capillary tube to a small chamber placed at a 

 lower level, which has a number of circumferential perforations, and 

 is in fact at the same time the burner of the lamp and the vapour- 

 producer which furnishes the continuous supply of illuminaut, the 

 liquid supplied to the chamber being vaporised by the heat of the 

 jets of flame which are fed by its production. 



Between 1830 and 1850 the knowledge of the production not only 

 of oils but also of paraffin, by the distillation of coal or shale, became 

 considerably developed by Eeichenbach, Christison, Mitscherlich, 

 Kane, du Boisson and others, and the practical success attained by 

 the latter was soon eclipsed by that of Mr. James Young, who 

 after establishing oil distillation at Alfreton from the Derbyshire 

 petroleum, began to distil oils from the Bathgate mineral in 1850, 

 and soon developed this industry to a remarkable extent. 



The first lamps for burning liquid hydrocarbon which competed 

 for domestic use, in this country, with the superior kinds of lamps, 

 introduced after 1835, in which animal or vegetable oils were burned 

 (solar lamps and moderator lamps), were the so-called camj^hine 

 lamps (known as the Vesta and Paragon lamps) in which carefully 

 rectified oil of turpentine was used. They gave a brilliant light, but 

 soon acquired an evil reputation as being dangerous and liable, upon 

 the least provocation, especially if exposed to slight draughts, to fill 

 the air with adhesive soot-flakes. 



After a time Messrs. George Miller & Co. of Glasgow (who 

 lield for a time the concession of the products manufactured by 

 Mr. Young) tried with some amount of success to use the lighter 

 products from the boghead mineral in the camj)hine lamp, but the 

 chief aim of Mr. Young appears to have been to produce the heavier 

 oil suitable for lubricating purposes, the light oil or naphtha meeting 

 with an indifterent demand as a solvent, in competition with coal-tar 

 naj)htha, in the manufacture of iudiarubber goods. He, however, 

 himself used the mineral oil produced at Alfreton in Argand lamps 

 in the earliest days of his operations ; a small sale of the Bathgate 

 oil took place about 1852-3 for use in Argand lamps, and the earliest 

 description of lamp employed in Germany, where the utilisation of 

 mineral oil as a domestic illuminant was first developed, appears to 

 have been of the Argand type. 



In 1853 a demand Sj)rang up for the lighter parafiin oils in 

 Germany. For three or four years previously, a burning oil was 

 distilled from schist or brown coal at Hamburg by a Frenchman 

 named Noblee, who gave it the name of photor/erie. The existence in 

 Glasgow of a considerable supply of the oils became known to a 

 German agent, and after they had been exp;)rted from Glasgow to 

 Hamburg for a considerable time it was found tliat the chief purchaser 

 was Mr. C. H. Stobvvasser of Berlin, who appears to have originated 

 the really successful employment of mineral oils in lamps for 

 domestic use, and to have been the first to bring out the flat-wick 

 burners for these oils. After a time Messrs. Young discovered the 



