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
Safety lamp the top of the lamp. Some Mueseler lamps were fitted with a mechanism which locked the base of the lamp. Turning down the wick eventually released the base, but by then the flame was extinguished and therefore safe. The lamp was patented in 1840 and in 1864 the Belgian government made this type of lamp compulsory. In the presence of firedamp the explosive mixture is drawn through two gauzes (cylinder and shelf), burnt and then within the chimney are only burnt gases, not explosive mixture. Like a Clanny, and the Davy before it, it acts as an indicator of firedamp,