30 On Vision. 



discoveries, Mr. Lambert of Killingworth Colliery said that Mr. 

 Stevenson had made a safe-lamp : but it is evident from his own 

 confession, that this was the lamp with a single tube and a slider, 

 upon a principle which had been recommended bv John Murray, 

 €sq. 



But, sir, wliat can be more vague than the certificate ? Trials 

 are said to have been made, but not how. Hydrogen is talked 

 of, explosive mixtures of which will pass through tubes much too 

 fine to supply air to a light, unless there were scores of them. 



Mr.W. Brandling himself, the inventor of a safe-lamp, is the 

 advocate for .Mr. G. Stevenson. If Mr.W. Brandling knew, Nov. 

 24th, that Mr. G. Stevenson had discovered a safe-lamp, why did 

 he himself, in December, bring forward a lamp with a bellows and 

 a tube at the bottom ? And why did he not oppose the vote of 

 thanks at which he was present, March 4th, when it was unani- 

 mously agreed that the united thanks and ap|)robation of all pre- 

 sent should be given, for the great and important discovery of a 

 siifctv-lamp for exploring n)iues charged with inflammable gas, 

 and when thev expressed their admiration of the talents and ac- 

 quirements which had achieved so momentous and important a 

 discovery ? 



These, sir, are convincing facts. It is evident that even now 

 neither Mr. W. Brandling nor Mr. G. Stevenson has any scicH- 

 tific ideas on the subject of safe-lamps. If thev were so well in- 

 formed on the suiiject of flame, why did they not invent the wire- 

 gauze saie-lamp, which Sir H. D.-ivy himself did not discover till 

 two months after his researches were begun, and which was at- 

 tained bv the natural course of analogy, guided and contirmed by 

 experiment and improved observation ? 



Because an ingenious and illiterate mechanic conceives that 

 a light will burn from hydrogen without atmospherical air, and 

 tries by a tube with a slider to verify this happy idea — therefore 

 the inventor of a lamp composed of a tissue permeable to hght 

 and air, and impermeable to flame, (by which the fire-damp itself 

 is consumed and made to give light, and which is dail\ giving 

 security to hundreds of miners,) is entitled to no praise from the 

 coal owners, but is to be calunmiated by a man who is constantly 

 profiting bv his labours ! ! 



If the wire-gauze safe-lamp had failed, w!io would have borne 

 the blame ? Mr. G. Stevenson or Mr. W. Brandling ? or any of 

 those persons so anxious at first to prove it of no value, and then 

 so desirous of proving that it was no discovery? No; the real 

 inventor and the first victims would have l)ecn those enlightened 

 gentlemen who trusted their lives to the resources of science, 

 and made the first experiments in mines with it ; the Rev. John 

 Hodgson, Mr. Buddie, Mr. Murray, Mr. Pccle. Now that it is 



in 



