Cheraw chronicle. [volume] (Cheraw, S.C.) 1896-2005, 1922-06-29
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need for something
which would enable him to finish the
task arrested by darkness. OF that
need artificial illumination was born
All through the ages they have come
together, civilization and lighting
Every forward step in the progress OF
culture has been marked by an adj
vance in illumination. The way to our
civilization of today lies parallel to
the way to better light.
A stick from the fire was no doubt
the first lighting unit, for when man
in the earliest ages made nocturnal
excursions into the surrounding gloom
and needed illumination, he snatched
up piece of burning wood from the
campfire. Yet there is plenty of evil
dence that crude forms Of oil-lamps
came into use long before history was
begun. Shells and hollow stones, even
the skulls of animals, were filled with
oil, extracted from olives, nuts or
vegetables, and this Oil, burning with
out a wick, furnished feeble, flicker
ing light accompanied by an unpleas-
ant odor.
In the course of time some one
thought of q wick, and the earliest
form of this improvement in illumina-
tion was floating wick Of moss or
fiber. In the Orkney islands the
stormy petrol, with a wick in its bill
is used as a candle today. The car
cass of an oil fish is similarly used In
| Alaska. Candles were preceded by
splints but both were used during the
same period. Gas illumination was the
next step, appearing less than cen
tury before the electric lamp proved
commercially successful.
In the ruins of Fara, Babylonia,
5000 B. c., was found the earliest
stone lamp of which there is any
record. This was merely crude
saucer-shaped affair, about four inches
in diameter, cut from alabaster. An
Improvement over the stone lamp was
the pottery lamp, which could be more
easily shaped, and specimens Of around
800 B. c., have been found. A form
called the virgins lamp" used in
Bible times consisted Of small hollow
vessel, with a opening in the top for the
wick, which could be carried in the
hand. Within the next half century,
about 200 A. D., these pottery lamps
had been greatly improved in appear
ance. for by then they had begun to as
sumo regular forms, with handles
and some attempt at decoration. Two
hundred years later bronze lamps
made their appearance. A modiica-
ton of this type, known as the Flor
entine lamp, which could be suspended
by chains, followed a few hundred
years later.
In the early part of the fifteenth
century, about the time that Columbus
was discovering the Americas, the
Venetian stand lamp was widely
used in the Mediterranean coun-
tries of Europe. Its graceful ana
artistic utility is characteristic OF the
Renaissance during which 1t was In
vogue.
The Flemish oil lamp, 1900 A. D.,
forms as sharp a contrast to the Vene-
tan lamp as does the Reformation
period, Of which the former was de-
velopment, to the Renaissance period
of the latter Lamps of this type may
still be found in use among the poorer
classes of continental Europe.
The candle is really form of oil
lamp in which the oil or grease in
| solid form Is melted by the flame as
it is used. 1t was formerly made from
animal fats, but Is now made of wax
from berries and paraffin. Whale oil
was the chief Illuminating oil for many
years. Benjamin Franklin discovered
that two wlcks gave more than twice
the light of one, and this led to tne
Franklin double-burners. Camphere, a
patent fluid used about 1850, was