124 INQUIRY AS TO THE FACTS. CHAP. VII. 



subscription list was headed by Lord Eavensworth, one 

 of the partners in the Killingworth colliery, who showed 

 his appreciation of the merits of Stephensori by giving 

 100 guineas. C. J. Brandling and partners gave a like 

 sum, and Matthew Bell and partners, and John Brand- 

 ling and partners, gave fifty guineas each. 



When the resolutions appeared in the newspapers, 

 the scientific friends of Sir Humphry Davy in London 

 met, and passed a series of counter-resolutions, which 

 they published, declaring their opinion that Mr. Ste- 

 phenson was not the author of the discovery of the fact 

 that explosion of hydrogen will not pass through tubes 

 and apertures of small dimensions, and that he was not 

 the first to apply that principle to the construction of a 

 safety-lamp. To these counter-resolutions were attached 

 the well-known names of Sir Joseph Banks, P.E.S., 

 William Thomas Brande, Charles Hatchett, W. H. 

 Wollaston, and Thomas Young. 



Mr. Stephenson's friends then, to make assurance 

 doubly sure, and with a view to set the question at rest, 

 determined to take evidence in detail as to the date of 

 discovery by George Stephenson of the fact in question, 

 and its practical application by him in the formation 

 and actual trial of his safety-lamp. The witnesses ex- 

 amined were, George Stephenson himself, Mr. Nicholas 

 Wood, and John Moodie, who had been present at the 

 first trial of the lamp ; the several tinmen who made 

 the lamps ; the secretary and other members of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, who 

 were present at the exhibition of the third lamp ; and 

 some of the workmen at Killingworth colliery, who had 

 been witnesses of Mr. Stephenson's experiments on fire- 

 damp, made with the lamps at various periods, before 

 Sir Humphry Davy's investigations had been heard 

 of. This evidence was quite conclusive to the minds 

 of the gentlemen who investigated the subject, and 

 they published it in 1817 together with their Eeport, 



