116 STEPHENSON'S THIED SAFETY-LAMP. CHAP. VII. 



the original lamp) the one tube opening directly under 

 the flame. 



This second or altered lamp was tried in the Killing- 

 worth pit on the 4th of November, and was found to 

 burn better than the first lamp, and to be perfectly 

 safe. But as it did not yet come up entirely to the 

 inventor's expectations, he proceeded to contrive a third 

 lamp, in which he proposed to surround the oil vessel 

 with a number of capillary tubes. Then it struck him, 

 that if he cut off the middle of the tubes, or made holes 

 in metal plates, placed at a distance from each other, 

 equal to the length of the tubes, the air would get in 

 better, and the effect in preventing the communication 

 of explosion would be the same. 



He was encouraged to persevere in the completion of 

 his safety-lamp by the occurrence of several fatal acci- 

 dents about this time in the Killingworth pit. On the 

 9th of November a boy was killed by a blast in the 

 A pit, at the very place where Stephenson had made 

 the experiments with his first lamp ; and, when told of 

 the accident, he observed that if the boy had been pro- 

 vided with his lamp, his life would have been saved. 

 On the 20th of November he went over to Newcastle 

 to order his third lamp from Mr. Watson, a plumber in 

 that town. Mr. Watson referred him to his clerk, 

 Henry Smith, whom Stephenson invited to join him at 

 a neighbouring public-house, where they might quietly 

 talk over the matter together, and the plan of the new 

 lamp could be finally settled. They adjourned to the 

 " Newcastle Arms," near the present High Level Bridge, 

 where they had some ale, and a design of the lamp was 

 drawn in pencil upon a half-sheet of foolscap, with a 

 rough specification subjoined. The sketch, when shown 

 to us by Eobert Stephenson some years since, still bore 

 the murks of the ale. It was a very rude design, but 

 sufficient to work from. It was immediately placed 

 in the hands of the workmen, finished in the course 



