THE CONQUEST OF NATURE 



that now despised device must have been almost as 

 revolutionary in its effect as the incandescent burner 

 and the electric bulb were destined to be in a more recent 

 generation. It burned with dazzling brilliancy in com- 

 parison with the oil lamp ; it gave off no smoke and little 

 smell; it needed no care, and it occupied little space. 

 Then for the first time in the history of the world reason- 

 ably good house illumination became possible. Several 

 additional centuries elapsed, however, before the idea 

 was developed of placing a candle in a covered glass- 

 sided receptacle, to form a lantern or a street lamp. 



For generations the candle held supreme place, 

 though its cost made it something of a luxury; doubly so 

 if wax was substituted for tallow in its composition. 

 But toward the close of the eighteenth century, when 

 the action of combustion had begun to be better under- 

 stood, attempts were made to improve the wicks and 

 burners of oil lamps. In 1 783, an inventor named Leger, 

 of Paris, produced a burner using a broad, flat, ribbon- 

 like wick in which practically every part of the oil 

 supply was brought into contact with the air, producing, 

 therefore, a steady flame relatively free from smoke. 

 The flame, while broad, was extremely thin, and its 

 light was consequently radiated very unevenly. Por- 

 tions of a room lying in the direction of the long axis of 

 the flame were but poorly lighted. To overcome this 

 difficulty, a curved form of burner was adopted; and 

 this led eventually to the invention of the circular Ar- 

 gand burner, the prototype of the best modern lamp- 

 burners. 



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