1 20 Management of Light in Illuminatio^i. 



a very superb lustre. But I must return to more hum- 

 ble but not less important details. 



Having by means of luminous screens, properly dis- 

 posed, contrived to conceal all that was disgusting 

 in the appearance of lamps, — to obliterate all their 

 shadows which rendered them so gloomy and melan- 

 choly, to disperse the too powerful brightness of their 

 flames without destroying their light, and to unite a 

 sufficient quantity of mild light in one place to illumi- 

 nate large rooms from one source, — a difficulty still 

 remained, which, if means had not been found to sur- 

 mount it, must for ever have prevented these improve- 

 ments from coming into general use. The spilling of 

 the oil in transporting lamps from one place to another 

 is an accident which is so very disagreeable, and yet 

 so common, that no person of taste or feeling can, 

 without considerable repugnance, permit a lamp to be 

 brought into an elegant apartment; and it is easy to 

 perceive that, when oil is put into large circular reser- 

 voirs, the danger of its being thrown out of them on 

 the least motion is so great that the accident could 

 not fail to happen very often if the most effectual 

 means were not used to prevent it. 



I was so fortunate as to hit upon a very simple con- 

 trivance for prevenfing the oil from being spilled in the 

 management of my illuminators ; and the means em- 

 ployed are so effectual that the accident is evidently all 

 but impossible. The person who has sold more than 

 200 of them in Paris assures me that this accident has 

 never once happened, to his knowledge, during the six 

 years he has been engaged in the fabrication and sale 

 of them ; and he is so persuaded that it cannot happen 

 that he does not hesitate to place pendulous illumi- 



