Gas detector early detection methods relied on less precise detectors. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, coal miners would bring canaries down to the tunnels with them as an early detection system against life-threatening gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. The canary, normally a very songful bird, would stop singing and eventually die if not removed from these gases, signaling the miners to exit the mine quickly. The first gas detector in the industrial age was the "flame safety lamp" (or Davy lamp) was invented by Sir Humphry Davy (of England) in 1815 to detect the presence of
Safety lamp copper coated with a fusible metal. If the lamp gets too hot the metal melts and closes up the air holes, extinguishing the lamp. The lamp has been tested and according to Lupton ""successfully resisted every effort to explode it up to a velocity of more than 100 feet per second"". It was not until tungsten filaments replaced carbon that a portable electric light became a reality. An early pioneer was Joseph Swan who exhibited his first lamp in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1881 and improved ones in subsequent years. The Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines set up in