FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY : rNPUBLISHED RECORDS. 27 
Fletcher, of Broomsgrove, near Worcester, gave an account of a new 
safety lamp which he had invented, the principal of which was that when 
the presence of fire-damp was indicated by increased flame inside 
the lamp, a thread was burnt which let down a door both at the top 
and bottom of the lamp, and thus excluded the air and extinguished 
the flame. Mr. Fletcher also proposed to light mines by conveying 
fire-damp in pipes, in a similar manner to the one employed in 
conveying coal-gas for the illumination of streets. The following 
report of the meeting is from the Leeds Intelligencer of December loth. 
Mr. Morton, of Newmarket, in commenting upon Mr. Fletcher's 
statements, described the casualties and injuries to which the Davy 
Lamp is subject in the hands of a collier. He said the " Davy" is 
unsafe when either the lamp or the inflammable gas is in motion, and 
that a current of gas moving against a lamp at the rate of five feet 
per second, is liable to be exploded by the passage of the flame from 
the inside to the outside of the wire gauze cage. He explained the 
additions and improvements made by Dr. Clanney and by Upton on 
the Davy Lamp, and he considered that the lamp constructed by Mr. 
Fletcher is an ingenious combination of Davy's, Clanney's, and 
Upton's principles. Mr. Morton recommended Mr. Fletcher to devote 
his talents and attention to the simplification and perfection of his 
invention, rather than to the lighting of mines by means of the fire- 
damp. " Similar schemes," he said, have previously been attempted 
and have completely failed, owing to the uncertain supply of the gas, 
its very weak illuminating power, and the complexity and expense of 
the apparatus requisite for its collection and distribution." 
Mr. Embleton, of Middleton, considered all the proposals 
hitherto made for applying the fire-damp of coal-mines as a lighting 
agent, to be quite impracticable. 
Mr. Hartop thought the Davy-lamp might be made perfectly 
safe by surrounding one-half of the circumference of the wire gauze 
with a shield, but Mr. Morton said that it was proved to be unsafe in 
an inflammable current even with the addition of the shield originally 
suggested by Davy, and just mentioned by Mr. Hartop. 
Mr. Henry Holt exliibited and explained plans and drawings of 
Hague's Patent Pumping Apparatus, which he recommended as a 
