Carbide lamp

Portable acetylene gas lamps, worn on the hat or carried by hand, were widely used in mining in the early twentieth century.

In 1892, Thomas Willson discovered an economically efficient process for creating calcium carbide in an electric arc furnace from a mixture of lime and coke.

[2] Manufacture of calcium carbide was an important part of the industrial revolution in chemistry, and was made possible in the United States as a result of massive amounts of inexpensive hydroelectric power produced at Niagara Falls before the turn of the twentieth century.

In France, Gustave Trouvé, a Parisian electrical engineer, also made domestic acetylene lamps and gasometers.

The first carbide bicycle lamp developed in the United States was patented in New York on August 28, 1900, by Frederick Baldwin.

A threaded valve or other mechanism is used to control the rate at which the water is allowed to drip into the chamber containing the calcium carbide.

This, in turn, controls the flow rate of the gas and the size of the flame at the burner, and thus the amount of light it produces.

Early caving enthusiasts, not yet having the advantage of light-weight electrical illumination, introduced the carbide lamp to their hobby.

[citation needed] Before the advent of high-intensity light-emitting diode (LED) illumination with lithium-ion batteries, carbide also had two important advantages over the alternative of miners electric lamps.

Miner's lamps were intended to last for the duration of a standard working shift, whilst major caving explorations could be much longer, so the carbide could be replenished during the trip.