Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/259

LAMP 247

An improved form of their lamp is shown in fig. 4, in which a portion of the cone B is removed to show the two parallel flat wicks A, A, which have each a separate slit or opening in the cone. C is the coincident winder for raising or lowering the wicks in the tubes, by which the wicks can be moved separately or simultaneously as desired. D is a lever for raising the extinguishers E, whereby not only is the light instantly extinguished, but the wicks are also covered and protected from dirt, while all evaporation by the wick-holder is prevented. Messrs Hinks & Son have further devised an automatic lighting attachment which obviates the necessity of raising the glass chimney for lighting the lamp.

Fig. 4. – Duplex Burner. Fig. 5. – Conical Burner.

Messrs Hinks claimed in their 1865 patent the use of "two or more flat flames," and since that period numerous burners have been produced in foreign countries in which more than two flat wicks are used. The crown burner of Brünner in Vienna contains no less than six flat wicks. There are triplex burners, too, in which the wicks are arranged as a triangle; a most valuable lamp of this construction is the "Hesperus" of Messrs Jones & Willis of Birmingham. Another form, the triplexicon, has three burners so closely placed together that the flames coalesce into a solid flame about half an inch in thickness. Further, there are star-shaped and cruciform burners, and others of little practical value.

The circular or tubular burners for mineral oils have been much simplified from the forms necessary in the case of colza, &c. A tubular wick is no longer required; a simple flat wick of a size that will allow its edges exactly to meet round the upper edge of the burner ring is used instead. In the form shown in fig. 5 the wick-holder and burner consists of a hollow truncated cone, with a vertical conical section removed from its side. The flat wick passes up through this cone, its edges meeting and forming in effect a circular wick at the top, while the central current of air gets ready access to the tube by the conical opening formed in its side, and the outer current passes up within the chimney walls as usual. This form also is easily susceptible of numerous modifications. (J. PA.)

Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8.

Ancient Lamps. – Though. Athenæus states (xv. 700) that the lamp ((Greek characters)) was not an ancient invention in Greece, it had come into general use there for domestic purposes by the 4th century B.C., and no doubt had long before been employed for temples or other places where a permanent light was required in room of the torch of Homeric times. Herodotus (ii. 62) sees nothing strange in the "festival of lamps," Lychnokaie, which was held at Sais in Egypt, except in the vast number of them. Each was filled with oil so as to burn the whole night. Again he speaks of evening as the time of lamps ((Greek characters), vii. 215). Still, the scarcity of lamps in a style anything like that of an early period, compared with the immense number of them from the late Greek and Roman age, seems to justify the remark of Athenæus. The commonest sort of domestic lamps were of terra-cotta and of the shape seen in figs. 6 and 7, with a spout or nozzle ((Greek characters)) in which the wick ((Greek characters)) burned, a round hole on the top to pour in oil by, and a handle to carry the lamp with. A lamp with two or more spouts was (Greek characters), &c., but these terms would not apply strictly to the large class of lamps with numerous holes for wicks but without nozzles. Decoration was confined to the front of the handle, or more commonly to the circular space on the top of the lamp, and it consisted almost always of a design in relief, taken from mythology or legend, from objects of daily life or scenes such as displays of gladiators or chariot races, from animals and the chase. A lamp in the British Museum has a view of the interior of a Roman circus with spectators looking on at a chariot race. In other cases the lamp is made altogether of a fantastic shape, as in the form of an animal, a bull's head, or a human foot. Naturally colour was excluded from the ornamentation except in the form of a red or black glaze, which would resist the heat. The typical form of hand lamp (figs. 6, 7) is a combination of the flatness necessary for carrying steady and remaining steady when set down, with the roundness evolved from the working in clay and characteristic of vessels in that material. In the bronze lamps this same type is retained, though the roundness was less in keeping with metal. Fanciful shapes are equally common in bronze. The standard form of handle consists of a ring for the fore finger and above it a kind of palmetto for the thumb to press on to keep the lamp steady. Instead of the palmette is sometimes a crescent, no doubt in allusion to the moon. It would only be with bronze lamps that the cover protecting the flame from the wind could be used, as was the case out of doors in Athens. Such a lamp was in fact a lantern. Apparently it was to the lantern that the Greek word lampas, a torch, was first transferred, probably from a custom of having guards to protect the torches also. Afterwards it came to be employed for the lamp itself ((Greek characters), lucerna). When Juvenal (Sat., iii. 277) speaks of the aenea lampas, he may mean a torch with a bronze handle, but more probably either a lamp or a lantern. Lamps used for suspension were mostly of bronze, and in such cases the decoration was necessarily on the under part, so as to be seen from below. Of this the best example is the lamp at Cortona, found there in 1840 (engraved, Monumenti d. Inst. Arch., iii. pls. 41, 42, and in Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 2d ed., ii. p. 403). It is set round with sixteen nozzles ornamented alternately with a siren and a satyr playing on a double flute. Between each pair of nozzles is a head of a river god, and on the bottom of the lamp is a large mask of Medusa, surrounded by bands of animals. These designs are in relief, and the workmanship, which appears to belong to the beginning of the 5th century B.C., justifies the esteem in which Etruscan lamps were held in antiquity (Athenæus,