Lamplighter

“ Wumble Pool! The very name struck a chill to our hearts.
"Yes, and there's the moon," whispered the cobbler.
It was true that the distorted image of the moon floated dimly in the Pool, as though it had indeed been caught by the mad-woman, and drowned.
"How soft the ground is!" breathed Angel.
"Ay, and the Pool has no bottom," said the lamplighter.
"I can't think she'd have the heart to do it," said Martindale.
The Seraph screamed.
"There she is! I see her! Standing in the Pool!"
We ran to the brink. A cold air struck our faces. Our feet sank ankle-deep in the mud. ”

“ The lamplighter, or man in charge of the battery, would of course require to know that none had been missed, and this could be made certain by placing the first and last lamp of the group within sight of his station. If they are alight, then all are alight. ”

“ It is said that a foreign ambassador happening to enter London in the evening, after the lamps were lighted, was so struck with the brilliancy of the scene, that he imagined the streets had been illuminated expressly in honour of his arrival. What would he have thought, had he passed through the lustre which is shed at present by the gas lights, from so many of our shops, and from the lamps in the streets? The Lamplighters are a useful set of men; and they are liable to many accidents while engaged in their dangerous occupation. ”

“ The torch, the candle, the lamp, the gas-light, the electric light,—these are the steps of the development of the lamp. And how marvelous a growth it is! How great the triumph over darkness! In the beginning a piece of wood burns with a dull flame, and fills the dingy wigwam or cave with soot and smoke; now, at the pressure of a button, the house is filled with a light that rivals the light of day, with not a particle of smoke or soot or harmful gas. Are there to be further triumphs in the art of lighting? Are we to have a light that shall drive out the electric light? ”

“ We have constructed a very powerful reflecting lamp from a large sheet of tin, nearly two feet in height, curved round so as to form half a cylinder, six or eight inches in diameter; about eight inches from its base, we made a shelf to sustain the oil lamp, and a socket to contain the candle if we should be fortunate enough to have one, and behind this we arranged a couple of sixpenny trade looking-glasses at an angle of 90° with each other, and by the light thus thrown forward we were able to write or sketch with facility during many hours of the weary night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lamps themselves are attached to some variety of ornamental fitting, or in many cases suspended by a simple pendant, consisting of an insulated double flexible wire attached at its upper end to a ceiling rose, and carrying at the lower end a shade and socket in which the lamp is placed. Lamps thus hung head downwards are disadvantageously used because their end-on candle-power is not generally more than 60% of their maximum candle-power. In interior lighting one of the great objects to be attained is uniformity of illumination with avoidance of harsh shadows. ”

“ We’ve got to get that lamp, you know.’
Mr. Femm lowered the candle and then made use of his other hand to stroke his long chin. He looked most fantastically bloodless, brittle. ‘Ah, yes, the lamp.’ He stared at Philip for a moment, then pushed his face forward a little. ‘Why should we bother about the lamp? We have been long enough away now. We can go back and say that we [185] cannot find it or that it was too heavy for us or that it is broken. They will have to believe us. Why should we trouble about the lamp?’ He spoke very softly but with even more precision than usual. ”

“ Only, every lighthouse does not [80] employ the same kind of lamp. In one, we meet with the Carcel lamp, where the oil is elevated to the wick by a clock-work mechanism. In another, it is the Moderator, in which the same function is discharged by a heavy weight surrounding a roller. In others, whose range is limited, it is the Permanent-level lamp, where the reservoir of oil is placed by the side and on the level of the burner, which possesses the power of regulating the supply. ”

“ I have seen a grey blue sky at the earliest moment when street lamps were alight at all, and radiant against the light grey of its invisible and equal clouds an electric lamp has been reared: an electric lamp of cold white light, pure and keen, and armed with intense and splendid arrows that would pierce day itself. Light grey sky and thrilling lamp together make—or so it seems to me—one of the most beautiful sights that eyes can see—the most refined, most severe, and most exquisite. ”

“ Save for the pale, ghostly reflection of a street lamp there was no light, and her hand groped instinctively toward the electric switch, then conquering the impulse, she closed the door and stole forward. Her movements were now swift, cautious, yet fearless. It was as though a long-pent-up energy had at last found its outlet, and the sudden light from the table-lamp lit up a face whose beauty and passionate and stern resolution might have belonged to some classic figure of tragedy. ”

“ A lamp, invented by a very learned man, Sir Humphrey Davy, is used when there is a risk of fire-damp. It is closely surrounded with very fine wire-gauze, through which neither the flame of the candle nor the gas can pass, yet the light can get out almost as well as through the horn of a common lantern. ”

“ The design of the lamp was admirable in itself, but, in my opinion, what added much to the beauty of the whole, was that round the body of the crystal lamp there was carved in cataglyphic work a lively and pleasant battle of naked boys, mounted on little hobby-horses, with little whirligig lances and shields that seemed made of vine-branches with grapes on them; their postures generally were very different, and their childish strife and motions were so ingeniously expressed that art equalled nature in every proportion and action. ”

“ New-lit lamps, sickly yellow under the dying day, stretch in immense vistas, unobscured by fog, but exhibit no detail of the track they will presently illumine; one by one the shop-fronts grow radiant on deepening gloom, and show in silhouette the figures numberless that are hurrying past. ”

“ The resistance of the one-hundred-volt sixteen-candle-power glow- lamp most commonly in use at the present time is about one hundred and seventy times greater than that of the mains and branches leading to it. ”

“ High candle-power lamps, 500, 1000 and upwards, are made by placing in one large glass bulb a number of carbon filaments arranged in parallel between two rings, which are connected with the main leading-in wires. When incandescent lamps are used for optical purposes it is necessary to compress the filament into a small space, so as to bring it into the focus of a lens or mirror. ”

“ The first and simplest is what I shall call the Safe lamp, in which a candle or a lamp burns in a safe lantern which is air-tight in the sides, which has tubes below for admitting air, a chamber above, and a chimney for the foul air to pass through ”

“ If you want a really brilliant, clear, white light, you must trim the lamp yourself. A small piece of pale blue or neutral-tint glass interposed between the lamp and the microscope has a wonderful effect in diminishing the yellow hue which belongs more or less to all artificial lights which are produced by the combustion of oil or fat. We have no doubt but that in a few years we shall be rid of the clumsy and dirty machines that we call lamps, and have substituted for them the pure brilliancy of the electric light. ”

“ I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it to his face.
“An ugly business.”
He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a small, brown moustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. His expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear. ”

“ Among the ancient lanterns are some in which{75} candles have been burned, and others where the candle socket has been utilized for the insertion of a socket oil lamp. In more modern times the horn has given place to glass. The carriage lamps of former days served their purposes well, and although some are certainly antique, they are by no means desirable curios. ”

“ I am aware that arc lamps are used in the Royal Albert Docks, London, in connection with the dock lighting, lamps being carried below when required, with flexible leads attached, and that, in some few steamers, arc lamps have been used in the same manner in connection with their own plant. Arc lamps not suitable. These arc lamps are, I think, not nearly as suitable as incandescent lamps for the purpose of lighting up a ship’s hold; the light is too glaring, and casts deep shadows amongst the bales and cases, besides which, the lamps are large and clumsy. ”

“ These lamps are globes of dead white glass in which the charcoal points are fixed. As soon as the sun sinks so low as to render the depths of the water obscure, the lamps are all lighted at the same moment by connecting the wires with the great electric apparatus on shore, and the whole subaqueous space is immediately illuminated as bright as day. The effect of the thousands of lamps hung in every direction is extremely beautiful. Every nook and cranny of the vast space glows with a marvellous brilliancy. ”

“ This keeper remarked that the centre of the flame should be exactly opposite the centre of the reflectors, and that accordingly, if he was not careful to turn down his wicks in the morning, the sun falling on the reflectors on the south side of the building would set fire to them, like a burning-glass, in the coldest day, and he would look up at noon and see them all lighted! When your lamp is ready to give light, it is readiest to receive it, and the sun will light it. ”

“ 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 lamp shone victoriously from the roof, and on Sunday evenings all the townsfolk often used to come to look upon and admire it. It was known all over the parish that our house was the first, after the parsonage, where the lamp had been used. After we had set the example, the magistrate bought a lamp like ours, but as he had never learned to light it, he was glad to sell it to the innkeeper, and the innkeeper has it still.
The poorer farmfolk, however, have not been able to get themselves lamps, but even now they do their long evening's work by the glare of a pare. ”

“ Antique lamps, copied from those exquisite shapes which seem to have been preserved for us in lava and ashes during all these centuries, with their scissors and pin and extinguisher, dangling from slender chains, lamps where modern invention for oil and wick meet and blend with chaste forms and lines borrowed from the old designers, and where the good of the eyesight is as much considered as the pleasure to the eye itself. ”

“ A great deal of light can be saved by placing the lamps so that they will throw the light where it is needed and by placing small lamps such as 8 candle power and 4 candle power in places where not much light is needed, such as bathrooms, halls, cellars, etc. ”

“ We are standing today on the threshold of an entirely new era in lighting. New illuminants are being developed and new methods are being devised for applying light to meet the needs of modern living. Only a little over a third of a century has passed since the first incandescent lamp was invented by Thomas A. Edison, and the electrical industry has since made tremendous progress. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sometimes two or more lamps are placed in groups between the parallel leads; these are then in series with regard to one another, and can only be turned on or off two or more at a time, in other words, one group at a time. If lamps suitable, each one turns on and off separately. If our dynamo is producing a current of 100 volts E.M.F. when working at its proper speed, and our lamps are 100-volt lamps, we shall be able to turn each lamp [27] on or off separately; but if we want to put in 50-volt lamps, we must place two together, and we shall then have to turn them on or off two at a time. ”

“ Never set a lamp on the table so that it can be easily tipped over, or on a sewing-machine where it can be pushed off with the work. Turn the wick down half-way before blowing out the lamp, and when the lamp is not lighted keep the wick below the burner so that the oil will not be drawn up and spread over the outside of the lamp. Never carry a lighted lamp into a closet where clothing is hanging. ”