The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

104 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. x.
contrived an apparatus to which he gave air from the mine
through water, by means of bellows. This lamp went out of
itself in inflammable gas. It was found, however, too unwieldy
to be used by the miners for the purposes of their work. A
committee of gentlemen was formed at Sunderland to investigate
the causes of the explosions, and to devise, if possible, some means
of preventing them. At the invitation of that committee. Sir
Humphry Davy, then in the full zenith of his reputation, was
requested to turn his attention to the subject. He accordingly
visited the collieries near Newcastle on the 24th of August,
1815;* and at the close of that year, on the 9th of November,
1815, he read his celebrated paper "On the Fire-Damp of Coal
Mines, and on Methods of lighting the Mine so as to prevent its
Explosion," before the Koyal Society of London.f
But a humbler, though not less diligent and original, thinker
had been at work before him, and had already practically solved
the problem of the Safety Lamp. Stephenson was of course
well aware of the anxiety which prevailed in the colliery dis-
tricts as to the invention of a lamp which should give light
enough for the miner's work without exploding the fire-damp.
The painful incidents above described only served to quicken his
eagerness to master the difiSculty. Let the reader bear in mind
the comparative obscurity of Stephenson's position, for he was
as yet but one step removed from the grade of a manual
labourer,—the meagreness of his scientific knowledge, all of
which he had himself gathered bit by bit during his leisure
moments, which were but few,—his almost entii'e lack of teachers,
excepting his own keen and observant eye and his shrewd and
penetrating judgment; let these things be remembered, and the
invention of the Geordy Safety Lamp by Stephenson, will be
regarded as an achievement of the highest merit.
For several years he had been engaged, in his own rude way,
in making experiments with the fire-damp in the Killingworth
mine. The pitmen used to expostulate with him on these occas-
ions, believing that the experiments were fraught with danger.
One of the sinkers, called M'Crie, observing him holding up
* Paris's Life of Davy, 4to ed. p. 310. , f Ibid. p. 316.