Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/114

280 WORKMEN AND HEROES admitting the fire-damp by narrow tubes, and " in such small detached portions that it would be consumed by combustion." The two lamps were doubtless dis- tinct inventions ; though Davy, in all justice, appears to be entitled to precedence, not only in point of date, but as regards the long chain of inductive reasoning concerning the nature of flame by which his result was arrived at. Meanwhile, the Report by the Parliamentary Committee "cannot admit that the experiments (made with the lamp) have any tendency to detract from the character of Sir Humphry Davy, or to disparage the fair value placed by himself upon his invention. The improvements are probably those which longer life and additional facts would have induced him to contemplate as desirable, and of which, had he not been the inventor, he might have become the patron." " I value it," Davy used to say, with the kindliest exultation, " more than any- thing I ever did ; it was the result of a great deal of investigation and labor ; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives of thousands of poor men." The principle of the invention may be thus summed up : In the safety-lamp, the mixture of the fire-damp and atmospheric air within the cage of wire-gauze explodes upon coming in contact with the flame ; but the combustion cannot pass through the wire-gauze ; and being there imprisoned, cannot impart to the explosive atmosphere of the mine any of its force. This effect has been attributed to the cooling influence of the metal ; but, since the wires may be brought to a degree of heat but little below redness without igniting the fire-damp, this does not appear to be the cause. Professor Playfair has elegantly characterized the safety-lamp of Davy as a present from philosophy to the arts, a discovery in no degree the effect of acci- dent or chance, but the result of patient and enlightened research, and strongly exemplifying the great use of an immediate and constant appeal to experiment. After characterizing the invention as the shutting-up in a net of the most slende? texture of a most violent and irresistible force, and a power that in its tremen- dous effects seems to emulate the lightning and the earthquake, Professor Playfair thus concludes : " When to this we add the beneficial consequences, and the saving of the lives of men, and consider that the effects are to remain as long as coal continues to be dug from the bowels of the earth, it may be fairly said that there is hardly in the whole compass of art or science a single invention of which one would rather wish to be the author. . . . This," says Professor Playfair, " is exactly such a case as we should choose to place before Bacon, were he to re- visit the earth ; in order to give him, in a small compass, an idea of the advance- ment which philosophy has made since the time when he had pointed out to her the route which she ought to pursue." Honors were showered upon Davy. He received from the Royal Society the Copley, Royal, and Rumford Medals, and several times delivered the Bakerian Lecture. He also received Napoleon's prize for the advancement of galvanic researches from the French Institute. The invention' of the safety-lamp brought him the public gratitude of the united colliers of Whitehaven, of the coal pro- prietors of the north of England, of the grand jury of Durham, of the Chamber