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

110 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. x.
times. We had two or three blows up in making the experiments,
by the flame getting down into the receiver, though we had a
piece of very fine wire gauze put at the bottom of the pipe, be-
tween the receiver and the pipe through which we were forcing
the current. In one of these experiments I was watching the
flame in the tube, my son was taking the vibrations of the pen-
dulum of the clock, and Mr. Wood was attending to give me the
column of water as I called for it, to keep the current up to a
certain point. As I saw the flame descending in the tube, I
called for more water, and he unfortunately turned the cock the
wrong way ; the current ceased, the flame went down the tube,
and all our implements were blown to pieces, which at the time
we were not very well able to replace."
The explosion of this glass receiver, which had been borrowed
from the stores of the Philosophical Society at Newcastle, for.
the purpose of making the experiments, caused the greatest pos-
sible dismay amongst the party ; and they dreaded to inform
Mr. Turner, the Secretary, of the calamity which had occurred.
Fortunately none of the experimenters were injured by the ex-
plosion.
Mr. Stephenson followed up those experiments by others of
a similar kind, with the view of ascertaining whether ordinary
flame would pass through tubes of a small diameter ; and with
this object he filed off the barrels-of several small keys. Plac-
ing these together, he held them perpendicularly over a strong
flame, and ascertained that it did not pass upward. This served
as further proof to his mind, of the soundness of the principle he
was pursuing.
In order to correct the defect of his first lamp, Mr. Stephen-
son accordingly resolved to alter it so as to admit the air to the
flame by several tubes of reduced diameter, instead of by one
tube. He inferred that a sufiicient quantity of air would thus
be introduced into the lamp for the purposes of combustion,
whilst the smallness of the apertures would still prevent the
explosion passing downwards,—and at the same time, the " burnt
air " (the cause, in his opinion, of the lamp going out) would be
more effectually dislodged. He accordingly took the lamp to
the shop of Mr. Matthews, a tinman in Newcastle, and had it