In the early days of coal-mining it was found that the flame of a candle occasionally caused explosions in the mines.  It was also found that sparks of flint and steel would not readily ignite the gas or coal-dust and this primitive device was used as a light-source.  Of course, statistics are unavailable concerning the casualties in coal-mines throughout the past centuries, but with the accidents not uncommon in this scientific age, with its elaborate organizations striving to stamp out such casualties, there is good reason to believe that previous to a century or two ago the risks of coal-mining must have been great.  Open flames have been widely used in this industry, but there has always been the risk of the presence or the appearance of gas or explosive dust.

The early open-flame lamps not only were sources of danger but their feeble varying intensity caused serious damage to the eyesight of miners.  This factor is always present in inadequate and improper lighting, but its influence is noticeable in coal-mining in the nervous disease affecting the eyes which is known as nystagmus.  The symptoms of the disease are inability to see at night and the dazzling effect of ordinary lamps.  Finally objects appear to the sufferer to dance about and his vision is generally very much disturbed.

The oil-lamps used in coal-mining have a luminous intensity equivalent to about one to four candles, but owing to the atmospheric conditions in the mines a flame does not burn as brightly as in the fresh air.  The possibility of explosion due to the open flame was eliminated by surrounding it with a metal gauze.  Davy was the inventor of this device and his safety lamp introduced about a hundred years ago has been a boon to the coal-miner.  Various improvements have been devised, but Davy’s lamp contained the essentials of a safety device.  The flame is surrounded by a cylinder of metal gauze which by forming a much cooler boundary prevents the mine-gas from becoming heated locally by the lamp flame to a sufficient temperature to ignite and consequently to explode.  This device not only keeps the flame from igniting the gas but it also serves as an indicator of the amount of gas present, by the variation in the size and appearance of the tip of the flame.  However, the gauze reduces the luminous output, and as it accumulates soot and dust the light is greatly diminished.  One of these lamps is about as luminous as a candle, initially, but its intensity is often reduced by accumulations upon the gauze to only one fifth of the initial value.

The acetylene lamp is the best open-flame light-source available to the miner, for several reasons.  It is of a higher candle-power than the others and as it is a burning gas, there is not the danger of flying sparks as in the case of burning wicks.  The greater intensity of illumination affords a greater safety to the miner by enabling him to detect loose rock which may be ready to fall upon him.  However,