 |
  |
 |
Liquid Fueled (and gaseous) Lighting Basics
Guild Members have often been asked to answer questions like: "Where can I find information about how to get my old ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ light operating again?", or "How did my xxxx light WORK?" Questions like this have been almost impossible to answer on our website, as they are sort of "Tell me everything you know (in 100 words or less)" requests; the sort that are best answered one-on-one, and even then, likely not adequately. Recently the Internet Search Engine that we habitually use (Google) has added a department where whole books can be viewed, and often downloaded. Our Fred Smith has been mining "Google Books", and has come up with several period books on a variety of subjects that deal with Artificial Light from various perspectives, like a textbook approach for technicians or students, or from the view of the insurance industry. These books have no Copyright restriction (other than the request by Google that they be used for private research only), and we have excerpted the useful (for our purposes) portions as "articles". Links to this material (currently 2 excerpts, and one complete book) appear below.
All these files are in PDF format. They are of varying lengths, but all will require some downloading time, particularly for those of you on dial-up internet connections. The Adobe PDF format requires the Adobe reader to open, but this is a completely free download. If you do not have it, you can find a link to the download on our Light International page (see taskbar above). The material can be kept in your computer files in PDF for viewing and reading, or printed out. We often take the PDF for granted, forgetting what an amazing program it is, and that it is FREE! Please don't scream at the Guild or Adobe about the varying quality of the scans that went into these files. Some are excellent, some look like they were done by somebody getting paid by the number of scans produced per minute. It seems Google reproduces just what they receive from the library that owns the book. The material would be editable from the original photocopy, but we haven't figured out how to edit page images in PDF format. So we have to live with some pretty sloppy work at times. But, we have the material, so we suspect we shouldn't complain (much).
The first file is an excerpt from "The American Family Encyclopedia of Useful Knowledge", published in 1856. It is the section (Bk IV) on Artificial Illumination. The book was written to an educated British audience (despite the title, it is definately a "British" book!), but is easily understood without being condescending. It covers the theory of light, various fuels, candles and candle making and a most interesting section on the state of the art lamps of the time, plus a section on gas lighting. The except comes from two different sources, so although the COPY flows without glitch, the page numbers of the second part don't match the first sections. This 25 Meg PDF has been "sanitized" so all references to the contributors and the institutions that hold the copies have been eliminated. Despite the fact that the book is over 150 years old, several instututions (including our sources) are claiming Copyrights to it. A fair amount of time has been expended squaring pages from photocopies, brightening age-darkened pages and cleaning the dirt and dust that infests the copies from the images. The Secretary is quite pleased with the results...what you see is a considerable improvement from what we first received! We shall refrain from commenting except in a general way on the obstinancy of the libraries that put their catalogs on the internet, and then refuse to make copies of the material so listed. Books become artifacts of value on the shelf. God forbid they should ever be opened or (shudder) copied and the knowledge therein shared!
The second file is "Cyclopedia of Fire Prevention and Insurance", a 1912 multi-volume publication. We have excerpted the portion of Volume II that covers "Common and Special Hazards", and from that section, "Lighting". This material covers candles, Kerosene lamps, Kerosene systems, Acetylene lighting and gasoline systems. Nice clear "how does it work" material with very little scare tactics. This is a 1.60 Mb file
The third file is a full book (ca 350 pages), "Practical Illumination" from 1907. Granted, there is a lot of material in this volume NOT of interest to us like (yech) electrickery, but this is a 1907 book! Are we going to delete a period view of the lighting system that won the battle? This volume is pretty dry, and does not seem to cover kerosene, but it does cover methodology of lighting several classes of structures. Open the file and look at the Table of Contents to see if you get interested! This is a 10.9 Mb file.
The fourth file is 3 courses on gas lighting from "The International Library of Technology". These are correspondence courses titled "Gas Making", "Gas Supply and Distribution" and "Domestic Uses of Gas". Perhaps not for every interest, but where else are you going to find this if you are interested? Again, the Table of Contents will be your guide. This is a 6.5 Mb download.
The fifth file is a gift to the lamping community from Erik Leger of Germany. He has scanned a volume of a multi-volume set of books entitled "The Men and the Earth" ("Der Mensch und die Erde")., edited and published by Hans Krämer. Volume 8 is the second volume titled "Der Mensch und das Feuer" ("The Men and the Fire"); the article title translates as "Modern Lighting Methods", written by Walter Heissner of Berlin, and printed in 1911. This text is in "old German", adding one additional difficulty to the language problem. There are about 120 pages of text, so translation will be a real task, but I HOPE someone will interested enough to undertake the chore. I'll be delighted to add translation, if and as it is provided.
The sixth file is one that has been in the Guild Library in an incomplete state for several years. This book, the 1895 Edition of "Chemical Technology, Vol 2: Lighting" covers Oils and Fats (animal and vegetable), candle making, the Petroleum industry, Lamps, Oil and Air gas, Ship & Railway lighting, and Miners lamps in almost 400 pages (another large PDF file...28 Mb). This is a treasure trove of information (in English) for anybody interested in the period before the Welsbach mantle. Thanks to Dan Edminster for finding this Google Books file!
Our Internet Service Provider (Saint Dennis of Peterson, of INET Northwest), has blessed us with file space, so if we find more material as helpful as we hope this is, we will add it to this page!
|
||
his page is hopefully a place where both beginners and experienced collectors can find basic technical information about how the various liquid fuel lamp styles developed, how they operate, and how people of the periods when they were in use viewed them. A recent Guild Question got several users involved in a search for information on a lamp developed by an ancestor of the questioner. Reference was found to the lamp in question in a magazine article, the article referenced an 1850's book, and after a search in libraries on two continents, copies of the whole article were pieced together from two editions of the book in question. This 1850's "Encyclopedia" of household information has a complete section on Artificial Lighting, covering candles, vegetable and whale oil lamps, the beginning of the petroleum fueled lamp, and gas lighting. It was this work, and the excellent information therein, that started serious work on what was to become this page.