Brilliant_ The Evolution of Artificial Light - Jane Brox [22]
François-Pierre Ami Argand, a Swiss scientist who worked briefly in Lavoisier's laboratory, made use of his and Priestley's findings to create the first significant improvement in the lamp. The most essential component of Argand's design was a tubular wick, which he fed between two metal cylinders. Openings at the base of the cylinders allowed air to reach the flame from both inside and outside the wick. The increased oxygen created a more robust flame than in previous lamps, and it also burned at a higher temperature, making for a cleaner fire in which the carbon particles were almost completely consumed. An Argand lamp produced very little soot and smoke, and there was little need for snuffing. Later, Argand enclosed the wick in a chimney—perforated metal, then glass—which not only protected the light but also created an updraft that increased airflow to the flame. He also designed a mechanism for raising and lowering the wick. According to some accounts, his lamp shone more brightly than six tallow candles. Others claimed that if it was fed by spermaceti oil, it produced about ten times the illumination of a customary lamp, and the flame—rather than being the usual orange—was "very white, lively and almost dazzling, far better than the light of any lamp proposed before."
This light born of experiment, of the investigations of a handful of men in private quarters, seemed so immediately bright that to some it was more than the human eye could bear. One account suggests that "as the light emitted by [these lamps] is frequently too vivid for weak or irritable eyes, we would recommend the use of a small screen, which should be proportionate to the disk of the flame, and be placed, at one side of the light, in order to shade it from the reader's eye, without excluding its effect from others, or darkening the room." And, after so many centuries of dreaming of more light, people did shield the flame, with mica, horn, and decorative glass. These were the first lampshades.
The Argand lamp had its challenges. Though efficient, the large wick and increased oxygen required much more oil than previous lamps, which not only made the lamp costly to run but also meant that Argand couldn't count on capillary action alone to feed the flame, since the viscous animal and vegetable oils of the time rose so slowly up the wick. To solve this problem, Argand designed an oil reservoir adjacent to and higher than the burner, which used gravity to feed fuel to the lamp, but the reservoir partially obscured the light and cast a shadow.
"Being 'the thing,' the Argand or Quinquet lamps [as they were known in France] were usually made up in bronze, silver, porcelain, crystal, and other expensive materials that kept them well out of reach of the ordinary purse," observes historian Marshall Davidson. And it wasn't just the cost of the lamps that kept those of meager means from buying them; the quantity of oil required stopped them as well. Brilliance still came at a price, and they knew it. "The modest versions that Yankee tinsmiths were advertising as early as 1789 did not win any broad popularity," notes Davidson. "Absurd as it sounds they gave too much light. That is to say, it was impracticable to make them so small that they had no greater flame than that of a single candle and ... anything that burned more oil, proportionately, whatever its brilliance and efficiency, was uneconomical for ordinary domestic purposes."
For mariners, the Argand lamp was invaluable. A lighthouse equipped with one magnified by a parabolic reflector not only gave many times the light of the old lighthouse lamps, but the light proved steadier and more dependable.