Volta’s Electric Lighter
date: label: date made
content: early 19th century
name: label: user
content: Hare, Robert
notes: label: Description
content: This device created light by means of an electric spark and some hydrogen gas. While devices of this sort have been referred to in various ways, historians term them Volta’s electric lighters. The reference is to Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), the Italian physicist who, in the late 1770s, noticed that electric sparks would ignite the gas that bubbles out of swamps (that we know as methane), as well as the flammable air that we know as hydrogen.
label: Description
content: In order to operate this device, one fills the lower glass reservoir with a dilute acid. When this acid comes in contact with the zinc in the lower glass reservoir, hydrogen is produced. Pressure from water in the upper reservoir forces some of this hydrogen through a small aperture at the side. Opening the cock in this aperture allows some hydrogen to escape, and raises a silk thread that activates the electrophorus in the base. The resulting spark ignites the hydrogen, and this in turn lights a candle in the brass holder mounted on the base.
label: Description
content: Robert Hare (1781–1858) showed an instrument of this sort to his chemistry classes in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, describing it as an “Application of an Electrophorus to the ignition of hydrogen gas, generated in a self-regulating reservoir.” In 1848, soon after he retired from teaching, Hare gave his apparatus to the Smithsonian. This example may be from that donation.
label: Description
content: Ref: Paolo Brenni, “Volta’s Electric Lighter and its Improvements. The Birth, Life and Death of a Peculiar Scientific Apparatus Which Became the First Electric Household Appliance,” in Marco Beretta, et. al., eds., <i>Musa Musaei. Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati</i> (Florence, 2003), pp. 371-394.
label: Description
content: Robert Hare, <i>A Compendium of the Course of Chemical Instruction in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania</i> (Philadelphia, 1828), pp. 65–66.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Chemistry
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.314948
label: catalog number
content: 314948
label: accession number
content: 212903
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lamp, electropneumatic
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in x 9 in x 9 in; 35.56 cm x 22.86 cm x 22.86 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 18 7/8 in x 9 1/8 in x 9 3/4 in; 47.9425 cm x 23.1775 cm x 24.765 cm