68 Safely -lamp Controversy. 



That Mr. G. Stevenson's pretensions as the inventor of a safe- 

 lamp are unfounded, has been sufficiently proved ; but even if he 

 had been a real and independent discoverer, still his dales of trials 

 upon lamps, taken even upon his own asserlions, are posterior 

 to those of Sir H. Davy; whose results were witnessed by men 

 of science, and communicated by letter, before this person can 

 be even imagined to have made an experiment. 



The opinions of a few country gentlemen connected by family 

 ties, and deriving their information from persons who do not 

 know the diflTerence between hydrogen and fire-damp or carhu- 

 retted hydrogen, can have no relation to the historv of science ; 

 and can never destroy, in the scientific world, the knowledge 

 that Sir H. Davy is the discoverer of the " principle that explo- 

 sions from fire-damp * in close vessels can be arrested by systems 

 of tubes and apertures, and by metallic tissues permeable to air 

 and light, and that he was the inventor of the safe-lamp on this 

 principle." 



Sir H. Davy has thought it his duty to expose the falsehood 

 of the opinion expressed in the Resolutions of tlie Messrs. Brand- 

 ling. Had they claimed a public reward for the persons named 

 in their resolutions, upon aiuj o/Aer ground, if he could not have 

 encouraged it, he siiould have been silent. 



After the foregoing exposure, but few remarks are called for 

 on the Report of Mr. Stevenson's Committee. On perusing it, 

 it is difficult to say whether most surprise is produced by the 

 nature of the evidence, or by the conclusions drawn from it by 

 the Committee. 



Two tinmen are brought forward to prove that Mr. G. Ste- 

 venson ordered certain lamps which he says were tried the 21st 

 of October and 4th of November 1815 ; but Mr. Hogg, the first 

 of these tinmen, fixes no date, and only says Mr. Stevenson or- 

 dered a lamp from him some time in September or October, which 

 was a fortnight in making: and Mr. Matthews, the other tinman, 

 whose evidence is of the first importance, as intended to relate 

 to a lamp with pretended capillary tubes, asserts that he merely 

 recollects making some trifling alteration in a lamp, bul he does 

 not know ivhat or when. 



* The late Mr. Tennant discovered that explosions would not pass down- 

 wards in gas-light burners of small dimensions, when an explosive mixture 

 issued from them was fired in the air. Mr. Tennant did not publish his disco- 

 very, and Sir H. Davy did not hear of it till after he had made his experi- 

 ments on the powers of small tubes to arrest explosions ; and he has quoted 

 Mr,. Tennant in his first paper on fire-damp, and by mistake connected Dr. 

 Wollaston, who oi.ly witnessed his experiments, with Mr. Tennant. 



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