.' * : : ELECTRIC LIGHTING. 



date from but the seventeenth century (1667). It was only 

 in the middle of the succeeding century that the famous 

 reverberes (street lamps with reflectors) were invented, which 

 in our youth we still saw hung in the middle of the streets in 

 several towns. At the present time we have a great con- 

 tempt for these means of illumination, and yet when Quin- 

 quet in 1785 invented the class of lamp that bears his name, 

 it was supposed that he had made a magnificent discovery;* 

 and I yet remember the enthusiasm which hailed Carcel's 

 invention of the lamp with clockwork. It was, however, only 

 at the period of the discovery by Lebon of the illuminating 

 properties of gas, in 1801, that the revolutionary era of public 

 illumination commenced ; but although from the first the 

 immense advantages of this method of illumination could be 

 proved, the determination to adopt it required a long time. 

 It was in England that the first applications of this system to 

 the lighting of streets were made, and although the invention 

 was entirely a French one, people did not bethink themselves 

 of using it in Paris until 1818, under the administration of 

 De Chabrol. The producers of lamp oil were at this time 

 struck with dismay, for in this discovery they saw the ruin of 

 their industry. But they soon found that, contrary to their 

 expectation, the consumption of lamp oil increased with the 

 development of gas illumination. It could not, indeed, have 

 been otherwise, for gas illumination, by accustoming people 

 to a brighter light, was bound to cause an increase in the 

 number of lamps used for private illumination, and an im- 

 provement in the construction of the lamps themselves, so 

 that for the same object they might burn a larger quantity 

 of oil. 



This retrospective glance shows us that at the present time 

 the consequences which may result from the development of 

 electric lighting are erroneously exaggerated. If this means 

 of illumination should come to be produced under thoroughly 



* It appears that Atgant was the inventor, and that Quinquet merely im. 

 proved the lamp by adapting to it the glass tube which acts as a chimney. 



