CHAPTER IV 



GLASS CHIMNEY 



ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING 



69. Early lighting. Lighting is the most familiar of the 

 many uses of fire. Convenient artificial lighting has become 

 such a common necessity that we seldom stop to consider what 

 a luxury it would have been for the savage with his flickering 

 torch, for the Pacific Islander with the blazing kukuinut, or 

 for those peoples who made use of lamps 

 of hollowed-out stones, shells, or gourds. 

 The elaborate lamps of the Egyptians, 

 the Greeks, and the Italians show a great 

 advance over these means of lighting; 

 but they are hardly to be compared with 

 modern appliances, such as the electric 

 lamp. 



The oil lamp. Not until 1783 was 

 the familiar oil lamp of to-day invented 

 by Argand, a Swiss physician, who devised 

 the ring-shaped wick with the central 

 draft (Fig. 43.). This increased the burn- 

 ing surface of the wick more than twice 

 the former amount. His brother later 

 discovered the use of the glass lamp chimney, which made 

 the light steady and brighter. 



Gas lighting. Another important advance was made by 

 William Murdock (1754-1839), a Scotchman. After many 

 experiments he succeeded in producing and utilizing for light- 

 ing gas made front coal. The way had been opened for him by 



158 



FIG. 43. Oil lamp, 

 with circular wick and 

 central draft. 



