SAFETY-LAMPS. 199 



pages of blue-books. They are sufficient at least to demon- 

 strate that whenever the scheme of illuminating coal-mines 

 by reflected light has been efficiently applied, no inconsider- 

 able number of difficulties will have been overcome. 



The explosion of the Felling colliery in 1812, and the 

 local commission to which it gave rise, must be regarded 

 as having inaugurated the era of safety-lamps. Not that the 

 idea of a safety-lamp was quite new ; so far from that, Hum- 

 boldt in 1796 devised a lamp on the principle of surrounding 

 an ignited wick with a limited quantity of air, and cutting 

 off all connection between it and the external explosive at- 

 mosphere. Necessarily such a lamp would be safe ; but for 

 many and obvious reasons its employment would be imprac- 

 ticable. 



Dr. Clanny too, before 1812, had devised a safety-lamp, 

 the protective agency of which, like that of Humboldt's, con- 

 sisted in cutting off connection between the external and the 

 internal air. It had the advantage over the lamp of Hum- 

 boklt, however, in this : means were contrived for establishing 

 a continuous supply of air blown through water by a pair of 

 bellows. It is easy to see that such a lamp must be safe ; 

 but the complexity of it, the great weight and size of it, 

 would necessarily destroy the best quality next to safety 

 which a miner's lamp can have portability. That lamp 

 never came into use ; but Dr. Clanny, living in a mining 

 district, placed in the very focus of fire-damp accidents, and 

 cognisant of the miner's wants, once having set himself to 

 the problem of making a safety-lamp, never abandoned that 

 problem. Lamp after lamp came out, having Dr. Clanny 

 for its inventor, so rapidly, that to speak of Clanny's safety- 

 lamp without specifying the construction would lead to great 

 mistakes. 



This is a point which must by no means be lost sight of. 

 There are those who more than inferentially accuse Davy 

 of borrowing the idea of his own safety-lamp from that of 



