498 DEVELOPMENT OF ILLUMINATION. 



Discoveries by French archaeologists have shown that the lamp was in 

 use at the close of the lacustrian bronze age, and up to the present 

 time these are the most ancient objects which have been found that are 

 unmistakably lamps. 



It would seem that the lamp with a wick had its origin at a culture 

 plane represented by that of the bronze age. though such employment 

 of tire might have been prefigured by usages in the age of polished 

 stone. Again, the latitude and consequent difference in temperature 

 of stations have exerted controlling influence on the character of the 

 early lamps which it might be possible to employ. Thus climatic con- 

 ditions render the fuel supply of the lamp solid or fluid and broadly 

 determine the form of the reservoir. 



It is almost safe to say that the higher types of illuminating appa- 

 ratus would not have developed except in the temperate zone or the 

 region of long nights. The tallow candle is a device of cold regions; 

 the same may be affirmed of the open fat lamp. The form of the latter 

 seems to depend upon the character of its fuel supply, and this cause 

 no doubt constantly gives rise to forms of extreme primitiveness in 

 the midst of a high civilization, aside from those descending from the 

 primitive type and retained in use through the working of the large 

 body of survivals of custom in every society. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAMP. 



The series might have grouped at the beginning devices for produc- 

 ing a temporary light and those undifferentiated lamps of skulls and 

 bones. The bodies of birds and fish burned by means of a wick also 

 may be classed with the lamps. 



TEMPORARY LIGHT. 



I. Oil bag from which oil is thrown on a tire to produce a temporary 

 light. Kwakiutl Indians, British Columbia. Lighting apparatus of 

 skulls or bones suggestive of primitive lamps. 



± Lamp. Unworked beach stone with a concavity, supplied with 

 oil and having the wick laid along one edge. Aleut shell heaps. 



3. Lamp. Hollowed beach stone w T ith moss wick arranged along 

 one edge. Worked stone lamps. Eskimo. 



4. Lamp of pecten shell with oil and wick of rush pith. Ainos, 

 Japan. Fusus shell hanging lamp. Orkney islands. 



5. Lamp. Terracotta saucer. China. India, etc. 



6. Terracotta saucer with edge pinched up into gutter or gutters for 

 wick. Syria and India. 



7. Lamp. Terracotta. Reservoir almost closed over; spout for 

 wick. Lamps of pottery with reservoir closed over. Lamps of bronze 

 with one or more wick spouts. Roman. 



