Davy, Humphry, On the fire-damp of coal-mines, and on methods of lighting the mines so as to prevent its explosion. Mit 11 gest. Abbildungen auf 1 Falttafel. Newcastle, E. Charnley 1817. Spät. Papierumschlag. 8vo. Titel, 20 S.

Eine der berühmten Frühschriften zur Problematik der Minenbeleuchtung und über die Erfindung der Grubenlampe, die zwischen 1815 und 1818 in England erschienen, nicht zuletzt ausgelöst durch das große Minenunglück im Jahre 1813, Die Schrift erschien auch 1816 in den "Royal Society's Transactions" (Dibner 181) und noch vor Davy's Schrift "On the safety for coal miners" aus dem Jahr 1818 (Hoover Coll. 255. - Honeyman Coll. 836).
"Science historian L. Pierce Williams has said that Davy's invention of the safety lamp for miners was a result of one of the most beautiful series of experiments in history. At the height of his fame in the summer 1815, 'Davy's help was sought by a committee that had been formed to find some way of preventing disastrous explosions of mixtures of methane and air in coal mines..When he attempted to explode a mixture of methane and air in a glass tube a quarter of an inch in diameter, he discovered that the flame passed slowly down the tube; and that when the diameter was reduced to a seventh of an inch, the mixture would not burn at all. Davy reasoned that the smallbore tubes cooled the gases to a temperature below the ignition temperature of the explosive mixture. He found that if a lantern flame was enclosed within a fine wire mesh, the escaping gases would be similary cooled; and thus the Davy lamp was born. It was one of the earliest and most dramatic illustrations,' said Prof. Williams in his 1970 Scientific American article, 'of the aid that science could offer to the rapidly developing industries of England.' " (Hoover Coll.) - Titelbl. gebräunt.

Vgl. Norman 613 und Bolton S. 391. - Poggendorff I, 529.