70 Safely -lamp Controversy . 



the powers of tubes to arrest explosion; whereas he says him- 

 self tliat his experiments were on pulling out blowers by buyning 

 candles to ivindward of them ; and that the first trial which he 

 made with any lamp, and which was any thing hut a safe lamp, 

 was on October 21. 



The question of priority is as clearly against the Committee 

 as every other part of the case. It would indeed be wasting time 

 to dwell longer upon the subject ; for, other circumstances apart, 

 a complete lefutation of the Report of the Committee is to be 

 found in a comparison of Mr. G. Stevenson's pamphlet, with his 

 evidence, wiiich seems to have been given iipon oath. The per- 

 forated tops, safety-trimmers, cylindrical form, and perforated ex- 

 ternal case of his first two lamps, imagined to make them look 

 like the v.ire-gauze lanijj, are allowed to have had no existence; 

 and it is certain that he showed no lamp, even in private, except 

 to persons who may be considerfd as his assistants, till towards 

 the end of November; and then he showed a lamp to gentlemen 

 who have not come forward to state what experiments were made 

 with it ; but who must from the newspapers have been at the time 

 acquainted with Sir II. Davy's researches: and it is remarkable 

 that after this time, tubes, and a top open above, were changed 

 for small apertures below, though not safe ones, and larger ones 

 above ; — an apparatus the very same in construction as Sir 

 H. Davy's first lamp, of which a notice was communicated by 

 the Rev. Dr. Gray, and the Rev. John Hodgson, to a large meet- 

 ing of the coal-trade November 10. 



As to the evidence of some of the members of the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, respecting experiments 

 with a lamp in the month of December 1S15, the Committee 

 might as well have brought forward experiments made last week. 

 But enough of this. 



The labours of the Committee, however, have been of essential 

 benefit to Mr. Stevenson; for we find that on Monday the 12th 

 of January 1818, at a numerous assembly of Mr. Stevenson's 

 friends, and which was attended by some noblemen and gentle- 

 men of great respectability, Mr. Stevenson was presented with a 

 "beautiful tankard," (silver we suppose,) "and about sevenhun- 

 dred pounds" subscribed by Messrs. Brandling and their friends. 

 No person can be sorry that the exertions of any individual to 

 serve the cause of humanity, should have met with so ample a 

 reward, however much the attempt to rob the real inventor of 

 the safety-lamp of the merit of his singular and unhoped for dis- 

 covery, must be reprobated by every real friend to science. 



That Mr. Stevenson might, in September 1815, have been 

 thinking about lamps for preventing explosions in mines, fur- 

 nishes 



