206 On Ihe Priority of Invention of the Safe-lamp. 



smal! tnbes in place of the one opening with a regulator. This 

 he says he " found to burn considerably better" than his first one. 

 " Better!" I deny that his first lamp would burn at all with the 

 aperture reduced to that size, by the regulator, which would pre- 

 vent the explosion from passing. He also found this lamp " to 

 be perfectly safe." The first, and I cannot doubt that Mr. Ste- 

 phenson knows it well, was vol safe. But even now, on the 4th 

 of November, speaking of this lamp, he says " it did not entirely 

 answer mv expectations." 



On the 24th of November Mr. S, shows another lamp to Mr, 

 Brandling and Mr. Murray of Henderland, which was tried on 

 the 30th. This instead of small tubes had a " perforated plate 

 covering the air-chamber." But on the 9th of this month Sir 

 H. Davy had communicated his invention to the Royal Society J 

 and that " wire-gauze stops exploaion as well as tubes or ca- 

 nals, and yet admits a free draught of air." Now what was Mr. 

 Stephenson's perforated plate but gauze of a more clumsy ma- 

 nufacture ? Yet have we seen remarks intended to serve Mr. 

 S. tending to insinuate that the gauze was borrowed from his 

 perforated plates ! 



Let any person of candour look at the evidence, and then say 

 whether I have " hastily committed an act of great injustice " 

 to Mr. S. 



But now I have to add another fact, were more wanted. Sir 

 Humphry, after announcing on the 25th of October, to the Che- 

 mical Club, that explosions would not pass through small tubes, 

 made no secret of his experiments. Many were invited to see 

 them, and myself among others. I 'am sorry that I kept no 

 note of the date of my first visit to the laboratory of the Royal 

 Institution where they were made ; but from a particular cir- 

 cumstance I am led to believe that it was before the 9th of No- 

 vember, for he made an experiment to show me that an explo- 

 sion would not pass through wire-gauze, and as far as my me- 

 mory serves me, he had made the first experiment with gauze 

 that same morning. 



Sir Humphry's perfecting improvement followed as a necessary 

 consequence from his discovery that wire-gauze would prevent 

 an explosion from passing downward or upward. If so, how 

 could it pass side-ways were a cylinder of wire-gauze substituted 

 for the cylinder of glass ? The glass tube was then thrown away. 



I did at first believe that Mr. Stephenson made his discovery, 

 such as it is, independently of Sir Humphry's; but, from an 

 after examination of facts, I found myself compelled to take a 

 different view of the question. The belief or rejection of a fact 

 resting on evidence is not with any person a matter of choice, 

 but of necessity. A. T. 



J.III. An- 



