Geordie lamp the base so that it gave more light and tried new versions on 4 and 30 November. This was presented to the Literary and Philosophical Society (Lit & Phil) of Newcastle upon Tyne on 5 December 1815. Although controversy arose between Stephenson's design and the Davy lamp (invented by Humphry Davy in the same year), Stephenson's original design worked on significantly different principles from Davy's final design. If the lamp were sealed except for a restricted air ingress (and a suitably sized chimney) then the presence of dangerous amounts of firedamp in the incoming air would (by its combustion) reduce
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