Alcohol lamp

“ If the brass catches of a burner are too tight, the chimney will break as it expands [Pg 64] with the heat. These catches are easily loosened without injuring the lamp.
Alcohol lamps for kettles and chafing-dishes must be kept perfectly clean. The wicks must sometimes be renewed before they are burned out. The question, What is the matter with the lamp? may often be solved by putting a fresh wick in the place of one that has become clogged.
This is very often true of oil lamps. There is more or less paraffine in oil, which fills the wick and prevents combustion. ”

“ A neat alcohol lamp may be made of an old ink or muscilage bottle. Insert a wick in a piece of the glass tubing and put this through a hole bored in a cork and the lamp is ready to burn alcohol or kerosene. Alcohol is cleaner to use as a fuel. Fill the globe about two-thirds full of water or other liquid and apply the heat below as shown. The distilled liquid will collect in the test tube. ”

“ The Alcohol Lamp.—A lamp for this kind of work is easily made. A common gum or mucilage bottle with a tube inserted in the cork has been used, so has a small tin spice-box, with a tube soldered into the cover. A common copper or brass cartridge, with the head filed off, can be used for a tube. A common oil can, such as is used for oiling sewing machines, with about half of the taper tube cut off, will make a serviceable lamp. These appliances are small, unsightly and not to the taste of the mechanic who has a pride in the appearance of his tools. ”

“ There are three general types of these—those which burn with a wick, those which generate gas, and those which permit the alcohol to burn off of the top surface of the container.
Alcohol does not produce much smoke in burning, even when no provision is made for mixing air with it. The ordinary alcohol lamp, having a wick, may be used as a heating stove. Stoves with wicks draw the alcohol up by capillary attraction to the point of ignition, and the metal jacket about the wick prevents the fire burning back into the bowl containing the alcohol. ”

“ How to make an alcohol lamp out of an ink-bottle is explained in The Magic of Science.
Bending the Glass Tube. —To bend a piece of glass tube you should have a fish tail jet set in the end of the Bunsen burner to give a wide flame like an illuminating burner as shown at B. Hold the tube over the flame of the burner, or alcohol lamp until it is heated red hot all along the place you want to bend it.
Fig. 87. kinds of bunsen burners
Now turn the tube in the flame with your fingers until it is heated evenly all around and becomes soft ”

“ Have plenty of alcohol on hand to avoid the possibility of the lamp's going out just before some dish is completed, otherwise, if you are a man, you may be tempted to use language almost warm enough to cook the ingredients.
If your chafing dish lamp has not been used for some time, pour only a little alcohol into it at first, let it stand, and then fill it up.
If obliged to refill the lamp in the process of cooking, do not do it while the lamp is very hot, as the igniting point of alcohol is low. ”

“ The work is done upon unvarnished wood, which should be seasoned and free from resin. Sometimes designs are drawn too upon calf, cardboard, and even upon velvet, but upon these materials be careful the point is not too hot. To use the pyrography apparatus fill both the alcohol lamp and the benzine bottle half full. Upon the benzine bottle put the rubber stopper that has the metal nozzle and join the bellows and the tubing. Now light your alcohol lamp, and in its flame hold with your right hand the platinum point, and with your left hand work the bulb steadily and continuously. ”

“ These lamps are efficient, the best using only 16 to 20 cubic centimeters of 95 per cent, alcohol for ten hefner candle power hours. They are long lived, and will last without renewal of wick or mantle much longer than the ordinary incandescent electric lamp lasts. Not the least of their advantages in these days of domestic difficulties and problems is their extreme cleanliness. ”

“ Alcohol or wood spirit is the fuel used.
The Argand lamp, when intended as a source of heat for chemical purposes, is so modified as to adapt it to burn either oil, spirit of wine, or wood-spirit, and the combustion is greatly aided by the chimney, which in this case is made of copper. (See engr. 2 and 3.) The lamp itself is also made of metal, and furnished with ground caps to the wick-holder and aperture by which the spirit is introduced, in order to prevent loss of spirit by evaporation when the lamp is not in use. ”

“ Glow lamp. A coil of fine platinum wire is slipped over the wick of a spirit lamp, the greater part being raised above the cotton; the lamp is supplied with ether or alcohol, lighted for a moment and then blown out. The coil continues to glow in the mixed atmosphere of air and combustible vapour, until the liquid in the lamp is exhausted.
Lamp, Monochromat′ic. A lamp fed with a mixture of a solution of common salt and spirit of wine. It gives a yellow light, and makes every object illuminated by it appear either yellow or black. The human features are changed in a remarkable degree ”

“ When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas—that is, a mixture of alcohol and turpentine. ”

“ LAMPATES and LAMPIC ACID. When a spirit of wine lamp has its cotton wick surmounted with a spiral coil of platinum wire, after lighting it for a little, it may be blown out, without ceasing to burn the alcohol; for the coil continues ignited, and a current of hot vapour continues to rise, as long as the spirit lasts. This vapour was first condensed and examined by Professor Daniell, who called it lampic acid. It has a peculiar, strongly acid, burning taste, and a spec. ”

“ BENDING GLASS
THE LAMP The wick should be cut straight across and should project above the wick holder about 1⁄8 inch (Fig. 5) , or a little more if you require more heat. Burn wood alcohol or grain alcohol, because they give flames without soot or smoke. Fill the lamp to within a 1⁄2 inch of the top only; it will burn one hour. The hottest part of the flame is not down close to the wick, as most beginners suppose, but up just beneath the tip. ”

“ If a magic lantern is used to throw on the walls of the room and the clothes of the company any luminous figures, such as those of flowers or animals, they 93will be coloured with these figures in the tint of the wall or fabric upon which they fall, yellowish colours of course escaping the transformation. If nitrate of strontia be substituted for the salt, a crimson tint will be spread over everything. In fact, a lamp prepared in this way will form a source of endless amusement. It is not necessary to use alcohol for the purpose ”

“ The two women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamp-light shone upon the tidy room and the polished table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of the bottle of plum gin. ”

“ A lamp, whose light is softened by a clouded shade, stands on an ebony table, between the sofa and the mirror, and around the lamp are clustered fruits and flowers, two long necked glasses, and a bottle of Bohemian glass, blue, veined with gold. A single picture, suspended against the dark hangings, alone relieves the sullen grandeur of the place. ”

“ One curtain, however, concealed a mid-wall alcove, a cimmerian cavity in which stood a tripod of cunning construction. For under its chafing-dish burned perpetually a concealed lamp, which kept the metal above it at a heat sufficient, at need, to ignite spirit cast upon it, or even gums and aromatic resins, the effect being as of a very immaculate conception of fire. ”

“ The general estimate of the value of alcohol for lighting gives it about double the power of kerosene, a gallon of alcohol lasting as two gallons of the oil. In Germany, where the use of alcohol in lamps is most fully developed, a mantle is used. Thus in a short time it may be expected that an entirely new industry will spring up to meet the demand for the illuminating lamps embodying the latest approved form of mantle. The adapting of the gasoline motors of automobiles to alcohol fuel will in itself create a vast new manufacturing undertaking. ”

“ These lamps, filled with seal oil, are kept burning day and night till the festival is over. They are believed to light the shades on their return to [pg 052] their old home and back again to the land of the dead. If any one fails to put up a lamp in the clubhouse and to keep it burning, the shade whom he or she desires to honour could not find its way to the place and so would miss the feast. ”

“ From an artistic point of view, one of the worst methods of lighting a room is by pendant lamps, collected in single centres in large numbers. The lights ought to be distributed in different portions of the room, and so shaded that the light is received only by reflection from surrounding objects. Ornamental effects are frequently produced by means of candle lamps in which a small incandescent lamp, imitating the flame of a candle, is placed upon a white porcelain tube as a holder, and these small units are distributed and arranged in electroliers and brackets. ”

“ Industrial alcohol is now used in Germany in small portable lamps, which give it all the effects of a mantel burner heated by gas. The expense for alcohol is only about two-thirds as much per candle-power as is the cost of kerosene. Even at 25 or 30 cents a gallon, de-natured alcohol can successfully compete with kerosene as a means of lighting. ”

“ And as to the Rising of Oyl, melted Tallow, Spirit of Wine, &c. in the Week of a Candle or Lamp, it is evident, that it differs in nothing from the former, save only in this, that in a Filtre the Liquor descends and runs away by another part; and in the Week the Liquor is dispersed and carried away by the Flame; something there is ascribable to the Heat, for that it may rarifie the more volatil and spirituous parts of those combustible Liquors, and so being made lighter then the Air, it may be protruded upwards by that more ponderous fluid body in the Form of Vapours ”

“ As the vapor passes through the tube, it cools and drops out at the end into the worm-tub, changed into a liquid stronger in alcohol than that from which it was drawn or distilled.
In this way gin is made from beer, brandy from wine, and rum from fermented molasses. These are very strong drinks, and only hard drinkers like them. But very few people begin by taking these; they first learn to like alcohol by drinking cider, beer, or wine, and end with gin, whiskey, or rum when they have become drunkards. ”

“ In 1776, the lamps, which before amounted to 2000, were increased to 3000, and a contract was entered into for lighting them at the rate of 30,000 florins. These lamps were invented by counsellor Sonnenfels, and amounted in 1779 to 3445. They are made of white glass, in a globular form, and have a covering of tin-plate, painted red on the outside and polished within. They are supported by lamp-irons, fixed in the houses at the height of fifteen feet from the earth. Each lantern is only sixteen paces distant from the other, so that the streets are completely illuminated. ”

“ An ingenious device has lately been added to the system for facilitating the lighting of the lamp. At the base of the lamp-post a small hermetically-closed can containing petroleum ether is placed, and connected by very fine copper-tubing with a burner under the vaporising tube. When the lamp is to be lit a small rubber bulb is squeezed, forcing a quantity of the ether vapour into the burner, where it is ignited by a platinum wire rendered incandescent by a current passing from a small accumulator also placed in the lamp-post. ”

“ The light from the lamp passes through the bottle to fall with concentrated and magnifying effect directly on that spot on the cushion where the work is in progress. The rack may be turned, the bottle raised or lowered, and usually four girls profit by the light from one lamp. It is a picturesque and primitive system, which many still prefer to the more modern and expensive electricity, because it [69] is an advantage to have the working spot on the cushion thrown into high relief, while at the same time the bottle light is softer and less tiring to the eyes than electricity. ”

“ It might be said that the light wines contain but little alcohol, and therefore can cause, even if taken to excess, but slight injurious effects on the constitution. I reply, that even light wines, taken in quantities, conduce to barrenness, and that, as a rule, if a lady once unfortunately takes to drinking too much wine, she is not satisfied with the light wines, but at length flies to stronger wines—to wines usually fortified with brandy, such as either to sherry or to port wine, or even, at last, to brandy itself! ”

“ Take the lamp down, and extinguish it: when you have thrown away the wick, and poured out the liquor, put it in your vestband and bring it to me. Do not be afraid that the liquor will spoil your clothes, for it is not oil; and the lamp will be dry as soon as it is thrown out. If you should wish for any of the fruit of the garden, you may gather as much as you please."
After these words, the magician drew a ring off his finger, and put it on one of Alla ad Deen's, telling him that it was a preservative against all evil, while he should observe what he had prescribed to him. ”