The history of human inventions goes hand in hand with the development of human progress and industry as a whole. The millennial history of horse-drawn carts and candlelight for some three hundred years has rapidly evolved, passing through certain intermediate stages. In the evolution of lighting , the gas horn became such a middle stage connecting the old torch with the Edison lamp . Currently, he evokes literary associations with Victorian England and Poe's novels. Meanwhile, the first gas lamp appeared on the continent.
When did it appear?
The gas horn owes its appearance to Philippe Lebon - a French engineer and naturalist. In 1790, he took up the distillation processes of dry wood. Analyzing his own experiments, once a scientist threw a handful of dry wood sawdust into a glass vessel. So Lebon released a gas that burned with a bright even flame, far exceeding the light devices available that day.
For some time, Philip Lebon experimented with new gas, and soon patented his discovery. The day when a gas horn appeared (of course, the first and primitive), and it is considered to be a new milestone in the life of gas lighting. But before the industrial introduction of new lamps, almost a century remained.
Industrial production
The second half of the 19th century is characterized as a worldwide industrial breakthrough in science and technology. A long-standing invention - a gas lamp - received a second life. Science has again returned to the idea of using gas lighting.
The idea of using gas to illuminate the streets belonged to the English king George IV, and at that time to the Prince of Wales. The first gas horn was lit at his Carlton House residence. A couple of years later, in 1807, gas lanterns shone on Pall Mall. This British street was very busy and demanded relentless traffic regulation even in those days. Pall Mall was the first gas street in the world.
At that time, the gas horn was a rather dangerous device - the ignited gas exited the unprotected end of the gas pipe. Soon, to protect the burner, a metal lampshade with several holes was constructed. By 1819, 288 miles of gas pipes were laid for lighting in the English capital, which supplied gas to over 50 thousand lamps. The initiative of London was picked up by other industrial centers. Over the next ten years, most of the central squares and streets of major European cities have already been lit with gas. To light lanterns was entrusted to specially trained people - lanterns.
This ancient and honorable profession was quite dangerous - lanterns often exploded, mutilating others. Nevertheless, there were a lot of people who wanted to risk their lives every day - lanterns received remuneration from the London treasury and had good pension plans in case of an accident.
Two-arm lamp
A standard gas horn has become quite common - it has been successfully used to illuminate streets in the dark. In London, a lantern with two gas horns was even installed. It was used in heavy fog, evening and night. The light from the gas in such a lantern passed through colored glass and duplicated the commands of the traffic controller, without which the busy movement of carts, cabs and riders would have completely stalled.
As you can see, a simple two-arm lamp was a prototype of a modern traffic light. With its help, the movement was successfully regulated for four weeks. But then the lantern exploded, and because of the consequences of this explosion, a policeman died. The authorities of the English capital decided to stop the experiment with two-armed lanterns.
Second generation
The second birth of a gas horn occurred in 1886. The new invention was outwardly indistinguishable from an old acquaintance - a kerosene lamp. Weight AUER patented such a lighting fixture, and for a long time it was called the "Auer Beak".
The next stage in the development of lighting devices was the invention, patented in 1890. Auer Von Welsbach lamps give the world a dazzling white light that cannot be compared to the artificial light of the past. A tremendous effect was provided thanks to the luminescence of incandescent microscopic particles of carbon, which was present in the combustion products and was retained in the filament.
Using the innovation allowed to reduce the spread of traditional ways of lighting houses: candles and glass screens for fireplaces are a thing of the past, and the production of famous kerosene lamps has declined a bit. Everything said that the era of lighting moved to a new level of development.
Auer Development
Thanks to the patent, the new gas horn design has become Auer's exclusive monopoly since 1892. The patent for a gas horn of a new design allowed the manufacturer to successfully develop its network of representatives in the Old and New Worlds, without forgetting about the most remote corners of the earth. Auer engineers did not stop there and continued to work on the problem of using the properties of gas for domestic and industrial purposes. In parallel with the spread of lighting, the company’s management was closely involved in the heating problem. It was thanks to the transition to another industry that the company experienced an electric boom and remained one of the largest in the world of gas engineering.
Gas lighting and electricity
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, gas lighting was widespread in the cities of the Old and New Worlds. It seemed that the day when gas horns were invented was a turning point in the life of mankind. Nevertheless, the sun of gas lighting set quite quickly: the first electric lighting devices replaced the gas flame. At first, the changes affected street lighting, and then gas lanterns were gradually dismantled in private homes and public institutions. At present, bizarre lanterns of the gas era can only be seen in museums dedicated to the past of cities and states of that distant era, for example, in the German Technical Museum (Germany) or in the Gas de France Museum (France).