which practical experience does not bear out. The explanation of
this is to be found in these facts: First, where we illuminate a
room with candles or oil we are contented with a less intense and
more local light than when we are using gas, and in a room of ordinary
size would be more likely to use a lamp or two candles than the
far higher illumination we should demand if gas were employed.
Secondly, the amount of water vapour given off during the combustion
of gas is greater than in the case of the other illuminants,
and water vapour absorbing radiant heat from the burning gas
becomes heated, and, diffusing itself about the room, causes great
oppression. Also the air, being highly charged with moisture, is
unable to take up so rapidly the water vapour which is always
evaporating from the surface of our skin, and in this way the functions
of the body receive a slight check, resulting in a feeling of depression.
A very successful type of oil lamp for use in engineering is represented by the Lucigen, Doty, and Wells lights, in which the oil is forced from a reservoir by air-pressure through a spiral heated by the flame of the lamp, and the heated oil, being then ejected partly as vapour and partly Oil-spray lamps. as spray, burns with a large and highly luminous flame. The great drawback to these devices is that a certain proportion of the oil spray escapes combustion and is deposited in the vicinity of the light. This form of lamp is often used for heating as well as lighting; the rivets needed for the Forth Bridge were heated in trays by lamps of this type at the spot where they were required. The great advantage of these lamps was that oils of little value could be employed, and the light obtained approximated to 750 candles per gallon of oil consumed. They may to a certain extent be looked upon as the forerunners of perhaps the most successful form of incandescent oil-burner.
As early as 1885 Arthur Kitson attempted to make a burner
for heating purposes on the foregoing principle, i.e. by injecting
oil under pressure from a fine tube into a chamber
where it would be heated by the waste heat escaping
from the flame below, the vapour so produced being
Oil applied to incan-
descent lighting.
made to issue from a small jet under the pressure
caused by the initial air-pressure and the expansion in the
gasifying tube. This jet of gas was then led into what was
practically an atmospheric burner, and drew in with it sufficient
air to cause its combustion with a non-luminous blue flame
of great heating power. At the time when this was first done
the Welsbach mantle had not yet reached the period of commercial
utility, and attempts were made to use this flame for
the generation of light by consuming it in a mantle of fine
platinum gauze, which, although giving a very fine illuminating
effect during the first few hours, very soon shared the fate of
all platinum mantles—that is, carbonization of the platinum
surface took place, and destroyed its power of light emissivity.
It was not until 1893 that the perfecting of the Welsbach mantle
enabled this method of consuming the oil to be employed.
The Kitson lamp, and also the Empire lamp on a similar principle,
have given results which ought to ensure their future success,
the only drawback being that they need a certain amount of
intelligent care to keep them in good working order.
Oil gas and oil vapours differ from coal gas merely in the
larger proportion and greater complexity of the hydrocarbon
molecules present, and to render the oil flame available
for incandescent lighting it is only necessary to
cause the oil gas or vapour to become mixed with a
Incan-
descent table-
lamps.
sufficient proportion of air before it arrives at the
point of combustion. But with gases so rich in hydrocarbons
as those developed from oil it is excessively difficult to get
the necessary air intimately and evenly mixed with the gas
in sufficient proportion to bring about the desired result. If
even coal gas be taken and mixed with 2.27 volumes of air,
its luminosity is destroyed, but such a flame would be useless
with the incandescent mantle, as if the non-luminous flame
be superheated a certain proportion of its luminosity will reappear.
When such a flame is used with a mantle the superheating
effect of the mantle itself very quickly leads to the
decomposition of the hydrocarbons and blackening of the
mantle, which not only robs it of its light-giving powers, but
also rapidly ends its life. If, however, the proportion of air
be increased, the appearance of the flame becomes considerably
altered, and the hydrocarbon molecules being burnt up before
impact with the heated surface of the mantle, all chance of
blackening is avoided.
On the first attempts to construct a satisfactory oil lamp which could be used with the incandescent mantle, this trouble showed itself to be a most serious one, as although it was comparatively easy so to regulate a circular-wicked flame fed by an excess of air as to make it non-luminous, the moment the mantle was put upon this, blackening quickly appeared, while when methods for obtaining a further air supply were devised, the difficulty of producing a flame which would burn for a considerable time without constant necessity for regulation proved a serious drawback. This trouble has militated against most of the incandescent oil lamps placed upon the market.
It soon became evident that if a wick were employed the difficulty of getting it perfectly symmetrical was a serious matter, and that it could only be utilized in drawing the oil up to a heating chamber where it could be volatilized to produce the oil gas, which on then being mixed with air would give the non-luminous flame. In the earlier forms of incandescent oil lamps the general idea was to suck the oil up by the capillarity of a circular wick to a point a short distance below the opening of the burner at which the flame was formed, and here the oil was vaporized or gasified by the heat of the head of the burner. An air supply was then drawn up through a tube passing through the centre of the wick-tube, while a second air current was so arranged as to discharge itself almost horizontally upon the burning gas below the cap, in this way giving a non-luminous and very hot flame, which if kept very carefully adjusted afforded excellent results with an incandescent mantle. It was an arrangement somewhat of this character that was introduced by the Welsbach Company. The lamps, however, required such careful attention, and were moreover so irregular in their performance, that they never proved very successful. Many other forms have reached a certain degree of perfection, but have not so far attained sufficient regularity of action to make them commercial successes. One of the most successful was devised by F. Altmann, in which an ingenious arrangement caused the vaporization of oil and water by the heat of a little oil lamp in a lower and separate chamber, and the mixture of oil gas and steam was then burnt in a burner-head with a special arrangement of air supply, heating a mantle suspended above the burner-head.
The perfect petroleum incandescent lamp has not yet been made, but the results thus obtained show that when the right system has been found a very great increase in the amount of light developed from the petroleum may be expected. In one lamp experimented with for some time it was easy to obtain 3500 candle hours per gallon of oil, or three times the amount of light obtainable from the oil when burnt under ordinary conditions.
Before the manufacture of coal-gas had become so universal as it is at present, a favourite illuminant for country mansions and even villages where no coal-gas was available was a mixture of air with the vapour of very volatile hydrocarbons, which is generally known as “air-gas.” This Air-gas. was produced by passing a current of dry air through or over petroleum spirit or the light hydrocarbons distilled from tar, when sufficient of the hydrocarbon was taken up to give a luminous flame in flat flame and Argand burners in the same way as coal-gas, the trouble being that it was difficult to regulate the amount of hydrocarbon held in suspension by the air, as this varied very widely with the temperature. As coal-gas spread to the smaller villages and electric lighting became utilized in large houses, the use of air-gas died out, but with the general introduction of the incandescent mantle it again came to the front. In the earlier days of this revival, air-gas rich in hydrocarbon vapour was made and was further aerated to give a non-luminous flame by burning it in an atmospheric burner.
One of the best illustrations of this system was the Aerogene gas introduced by A. I. van Vriesland, which was utilized for lighting a number of villages and railway stations on the continent of Europe. In this arrangement a revolving coil of pipes continually dips into petroleum spirit contained in a cylinder, and the air passed into the cylinder through the coil of pipes becomes highly carburetted by the time it reaches the outlet at the far end of the cylinder. The resulting gas when burnt in an ordinary burner gives a luminous flame; it can be used in atmospheric burners differing little from those of the ordinary type. With an ordinary Welsbach “C” burner it gives a duty of about 30 candles per foot of gas consumed, the high illuminating power being due to the fact that the gas is under a pressure of from 6 to 8 in. With such a gas, containing a considerable percentage of hydrocarbon vapour, any leakage into the air of a room would give rise to an explosive mixture, in the same way that coal-gas would do, but inasmuch as mixtures of the vapour of petroleum spirit and air are only explosive for a very short range, that is, from 1.25 to 5.3%, some systems have been
