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
Davy lamp the paper commented "The Lamp offers absolute security to the miner... With the excellent ventilation of the "Whitehaven Collieries" and the application of Sir HUMPHRY's valuable instrument, the accidents from the explosion of' (carburetted) 'hydrogene which have occurred (although comparatively few for such extensive works) will by this happy invention be avoided". Unfortunately, this prediction was not fulfilled: in the next thirty years, firedamp explosions in Whitehaven pits cost 137 lives. More generally, the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines reported in 1835 that the introduction of the Davy lamp had led to an increase in mine accidents; the lamp