The luminous efficiency of a light-source is distinguished from that of a lamp.  The former is the ratio of the light produced to the amount of energy radiated by the light-source.  The latter is the ratio of the light produced to the total amount of energy consumed by the device.  In other words, the luminous efficiency of a lamp is less than that of the light-source because the consumption of energy in other parts of the lamp besides the light-source are taken into account.  These additional losses are appreciable in the mechanisms of arc-lamps but are almost negligible in vacuum incandescent filament lamps.  They are unknown for the firefly, so that its luminous efficiency only as a light-source can be determined.  Its efficiency as a lighting-plant may be and perhaps is rather low.

VIII

MODERN GAS-LIGHTING

As has been seen, the lighting industry, as a public service, was born in London about a century ago and companies to serve the public were organized on the Continent shortly after.  From this early beginning gas-light remained for a long time the only illuminant supplied by a public-service company.  It has been seen that throughout the ages little advance was made in lighting until oil-lamps were improved by Argand in the eighteenth century.  Candles and open-flame oil-lamps were in use when the Pyramids were built and these were common until the approach of the nineteenth century.  In fact, several decades passed after the first gas-lighting was installed before this form of lighting began to displace the improved oil-lamps and candles.  It was not until about 1850 that it began to invade the homes of the middle and poorer classes.  During the first half of the nineteenth century the total light in an average home was less than is now obtained from a single light-source used in residences; still, the total cost of lighting a residence has decreased considerably.  If the social and industrial activities of mankind are visualized for these various periods in parallel with the development of artificial lighting, a close relation is evident.  Did artificial light advance merely hand in hand with science, invention, commerce, and industry, or did it illuminate the pathway?

Although gas-lighting was born in England it soon began to receive attention elsewhere.  In 1815 the first attempt to provide a gas-works in America was made in Philadelphia; but progress was slow, with the result that Baltimore and New York led in the erection of gas-works.  There are on record many protests against proposals which meant progress in lighting.  These are amusing now, but they indicate the inertia of the people in such matters.  When Bollman was projecting a plan for lighting Philadelphia by means of piped gas, a group of prominent citizens submitted a protest in 1833 which aimed to show that