Safety-lamps: 387 
P..S. When ether is poured upon a lighted lamp covered by 
& wire-sieve, a lambent blue flame may be observed playing above 
the wire-gauze ; but the flame is innoxious, as it will not set fire 
even to ether. 
I should be glad to hear from youself, or any of your corre- 
spondents, the cause of this phenomenon. H, 
- =r 
Though 1 have decidedly declared, in former Numbers, that 
as cool an examination as I could give to the evidence, had af- 
forded me complete conviction that Mr. Stephenson was not 
the original inventor of the safety-lamp. I have complied with 
the wish of my correspondent, in giving the foregoing a place. 
It ought to be preserved as a matter of fact, connected with the 
history of the sciences. For the same reason I subjoin the fol- 
lowing : read Ne 
“Resolutions of aMeeting held for considering the Facts relating 
to the Discovery of the Lamp of Safety. 
“* Soho-square, Nov. 20. 
“An advertisement having been inserted in the Newcastle Cou- 
rant for Saturday, November 8, 1817, purporting to contain the 
resolutions of ‘A meeting held for the purpose of remunerating 
Mr. George Stephenson for the valuable service he has rendered 
to mankind by the invention otshis safety-lamp, which is calcu- 
lated for the preservation of human life, in situations formerly of 
the greatest danger,” and asserting, 
«¢ Phat it is the opinion of this meeting, that Mr. George 
Stepheison, having discovered the fact, that the explosion of 
hydrogen gas will not pass through tubes and apertures of small 
dimensions, and having been the first to apply that principle in 
the construction of a safet-lamp, is entitled to a public reward ;’ 
‘* We have considered the evidence produced in various publica- 
tions by Mr. Stephenson. and his friends, in support of his claims ; 
and having examined his lamps, aud inquired into their effects 
in explosive mixtures, are. clearly of opinion, 
©}. That Mr.Stephenson is not the author of the discovery of 
the fact, that an explosion of inflammable gas will not pass through 
tubes and apertures of small dimensions. 
2. That Mr. G, Stephenson was not the first to apply that 
principle to the construction of a safety-lamp, none of the lamps 
which he made in the year 1815 having been safe; and there being 
no evidence even of their having been wade upon that principle, . 
~ 3. That Sir Humphry Davy not only discovered, independently 
of all others, and without any knowledge of the unpublished ex- 
periments of the late Mr. Tennant on flame, the principle of the 
non-communication of explosions through small apertures, but 
that 
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‘ 
