218 
COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS. 
Up to the year 1816 the only practical guarantee which 
the miner had for his safety in fiery mines was good ventila- 
tion. If that was defective his life was in constant danger so 
long as he remained in the mine, and remembering what I have 
said as to the older methods of ventilating a mine, it is not 
surprising to learn that the number of explosions began to 
attract attention. A committee of scientific gentlemen was 
appointed to inquire into the matter, among whom was Sir 
Humphrey Davy. At the same time, or there about, George 
Stephenson had set himself to invent a lamp which could be 
used with safety in gaseous mines. Sir Humphrey Davy also 
set about the same thing, and both discovered that explosion 
would not pass down tubes of a small diameter. After three 
.attempts; Stephenson perfected his lamp on that principle, and 
exhibited it before the Literary and Philosophical Society, of 
Newcastle, on the evening of December 30th, 1815, and it was 
shortly afterwards adopted in the Killing worth Colliery, where 
he was engaged. 
Soon after the exhibition of Stephenson’s lamp Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy produced his at Newcastle,, and so similar was it to 
Stephenson’s that people exclaimed,^ “ Why it is the same as 
^Stephenson’s ! ” There is little doubt that these two great men 
worked quite apart from one another, and it is^ not altogether an 
unnatural coincidence that two persons trying to attain the same 
object should produce the same result. There is, however, this 
difference between them — Sir Humphrey Davy constructed his 
lamp on scientific principles, knowing the cause and effect, 
while Stephenson constructed his from practical observation, and 
when his lamp was complete his idea as to the reason of the 
result produced was erroneous. 
The safety lamp depends upon a very simple law of nature, 
^ Life of George Stephenson, by Smiles, p. 116. 
