~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Davy's first safety lantern, 1815 (at left) Diagram of a Davy lamp The Davy lamp is a safety lamp used in flammable atmospheres, invented in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy. It consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. It was created for use in coal mines, to reduce the danger of explosions due to the presence of methane and other flammable gases, called firedamp or minedamp.
History
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Davy lamp” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.