56 Notices respecting New Books. 
air may be sufficiently respirable to enable him to make good his 
way, yet it cannot be breathed safely for any time. . 
*€] found that sparks from steel and flint fell red, and with- 
out scintillation, in a mixture of coal gas in which a cylinder 
lamp had burnt out; and they appeared equally dull and red in 
a mixture of three parts of air and one part of coal gas; so that 
the light of a steel mill would not be sufficient to work by in an 
atmosphere in which the cylinder lamp was extinguished, and it 
could only be employed to guide the miner out of an atmosphere 
which it would be fatal to breathe for a continuance. 
“« To conclude: there appears every reason to expect that the 
safe light, in this state of improvement, with proper attention, 
will enable the miner to work with perfect security in parts of 
the mines most liable to fire-damp, and that it will not only pre- 
serve him from, but enable him to combat and subdue, his most 
dangerous enemy. Confined in the wire-gauze safe-lamp, the 
flame of the fire-damp will be divested of all its terrors, and 
made to expend energies formerly so destructive, in producing 
an useful light. . 
London, Dec. 31, 1815. 
Nort, - 
* “A considerable degree of heat is always produced by the combustion of 
the explosive fire-damp in the wire-gauze cylinders; therefore a candle 
soon melts away in the lantern, when the fire-damp is burning in it; and if 
candles are used with the wire-gauze safe-guard, the flame of the fire-damp 
should be extinguished by putting a woollen or linen extinguisher over the 
cylinder, to prevent the candle from dropping out, or the candle should be 
secured in the bottom of the lantern, by a safety screw: where the fire- 
damp is known to exist, it will, however, always be better to work with 
small lamps, which may be fed with tallow; and where the object is to de- 
stroy the fire-damp speedily, a large cylinder lamp with double wire-gauze 
may be used. 
“The joinings in the lamps should be made rather with hard than soft 
solder, and there should always be a handle at the bottom, or a ring at the 
top, to prevent the hand from being burnt. j 
“ The flame of the fire-damp in the cylinders may be easily extinguished 
by a cover nade of coarse paper, or by a woollen cap. If any part of the 
wire is found to become strongly red hot, water may be thrown upon it, or 
the communication may be interrupted by plates of metal. 
“« Many devices. may be contrived for giving light by the fire-damp; 
lamps may be made partly of glass and partly of wire-gauze: and by ma- 
king a chimney partly of metal, the fire-damp may be burnt ouly at certain 
surfaces. 
“When the cylinder lamp is first introduced into an explosive atmo- 
sphere, a musical sound is produced, like that produced by hydrogen burn- 
ing in narrow tubes. 
“ T have since found that the size of the apertures may be carried to 900 
in a square inch, and that the wire may be 1-70th of an inch in thickness, 
and these probably are not the limits. The larger the apertures of the 
“Ns wire- 
