Safety lamp could create a sufficient updraft that firedamp would not penetrate down the chimney. Further observations of the speed of flame fronts in fissures and passageways led him to design a lamp with fine tubes admitting the air. Sir Humphry Davy was asked to consider the problems of a safety lamp following the Felling explosion. Previous experimenters had used coal gas (chiefly carbon monoxide) incorrectly, believing it to be the same as firedamp. Davy however performed his experiments with samples of firedamp collected from pits. As an experimental chemist, he was familiar with flames not passing through gauze; his experiments enabled
Geordie lamp designs in early years and later adopted Davy's gauze in preference to the tubes and it was this revised design that was used for most of the 19th century as the "Geordie" lamp. The Geordie lamp continued to be used in the north-east of England through most of the 19th century, until the introduction of electric lighting. Bibliography Geordie lamp The Geordie lamp was a safety lamp for use in inflammable atmospheres, invented by George Stephenson in 1815 as a miner's lamp to prevent explosions due to firedamp in coal mines. In 1815, Stephenson was the engine-wright at the Killingworth