the Use of the Wire-gauze Safety-lamp. 93 



the very outset of his inquiries ; but besides the complexity of 

 tubes, and the difficulty of admitting sufficient air to feed the 

 flame by apertures, glass, or some other transparent substance, 

 had to be employed, as a medium for the transmission of light, 

 and these are imminently liable to accident. He therefore re- 

 linquished these discoveries, and adopted cylinders of wire-gauze, 

 on account of their combining the advantages of transparent 

 substances without being liable to their inconveniences * ; and 

 the same reasons, 1 have no doubt, have decided others in the 

 choice of the wire-gauze lamp. 



Great pains have been taken to impress the public mind, that 

 certain viewers of this neighbourhood bruited about the excellence 

 of Sir H. Davy's lamp, and brought it into use in preference to 

 others of some pretended superior merit. The falsehood of this 

 calunmy is only equalled by its absurdity. Is it likely, in the 

 name of common sense, that those to whose care the lives of so 

 many of their fellow-creatures are intrusted, and who also risk 

 their own existence daily on the wire-gauze lamp, should have 

 adopted it from any other consideration than that of a thorough 

 conviction of its exceeding every other description of lamp, in 

 safety, simplicity, and utility? It would certainly be expecting 

 too much of human nature to suppose that such a compliment 

 could be paid to any one, let his rank in society or his eminence 

 in science be what they may. Such an idea could only have, 

 sprung from the conceited opinions of those closet and firesid<5 

 viewers, who know little more of a coal-mine than its name, and 

 who cannot be supposed to be competent to sit in judgement on 

 matters in which they are wholly devoid of experience: and it is 

 only from such, that we have ever heard of any objections to the 

 wire-gauze lamp. 



No one that has actually the charge of a fiery colliery has 

 hitherto denied the safety of tliis lamp, or set it on a level with 

 any that have been constructed on modifications of its principles. 

 It can scarcely happen that unprejudiced and practical men can 

 have any doubts on the subject; and though much abuse has 

 been bestowed on our {)rofession, for ignorance, stupidity, aver- 

 sion to improvement, and the like, I am, however, enabled to 

 state, that, at leabt in the present instance, the viewers of this 

 country have readily adopted a great improvement in the science 

 of minina;. Tlie schejucs of visionaries and theorists may have 

 been treated with indifference; but real improvements have al- 

 ways, I believe, been readily patronized by the coal owners of this 

 country. 



Wal/acii.J Colliery, Jnmiary 13, 1817. JoHN BUBDLE. 



* Sec Sir II. Davy's coinmunicotioiis on t!ie subject to the Royal Society. 



XXIII. On 



