| A kerosene lantern is a fixture used on the basis of kerosene combustion - a product of the distillation of oil. The principle action of a kerosene lantern is as same as of an oil lamp: Kerosene is filled to capacity and the match is dropped in. The other end of a match is clamped by the lifting mechanism in a burner and is designed so that the air is leaked from below. Unlike an oil lamp, the kerosene lantern has a wattle match. Above the burner mounted is the lantern glass - for the purpose of maintenance and for protection of the flame against wind.
Important improvements had been brought into the device of oil lanterns in the end of the 18th century by the Swiss inventor A.Argan. He had introduced a burner of a new type with a round match and had suggested putting a vertical tube on it for a forceful draught. In the beginning it was metal and then he came up with the glass tube. The French druggist Kenke had brought some improvements to a lamp by having placed the tank with oil at burner level, and had begun the manufacture of the wall mountable and desktop oil lanterns which later had received his name “kenkets”.
In the forties of the 19th century English researchers who were engaged in the dry distillation of coal and the decomposition of oil, had received a liquid which was named kerosene. The further development of lighting devices is also connected with it. The oil lantern gave much more light, allowed to regulate better brightness of the flame and quickly won popularity.
After the wide introduction of electric illumination, oil lanterns were used basically in remote places where power shortages were common, and were used also by summer residents and tourists.
The first oil lantern had been described by Ar-Razi in Baghdad in the Sixth century. The modern oil lamp had been invented by druggists Ivan Lukasevich and Jan Zekh in 1853 in Lvov.
It appears that the oil lantern promoted the development of the oil business. Razi asserted that the petroleum industry, oil extracting, petrol production, oil refineries - everything is obliged to the oil lamp invention. It had given thrust; it had pulled the pursuit of oil, had evoked to life and had given birth to the present powerful industry of oil. Unlike oil lamps, kerosene lanterns were supplied by air guidance with channels which gave strong even lighting, and they were the most wanted and therefore began the Baku petroleum fields and the American oil fever. There were no other consumers available, and cars had not appeared yet. Those were the 60's of the 19th century. The oil lantern quickly and victoriously was used in cities, villages, and in the houses of Europe.
It was the whole industry, a wide technical direction which had created an era of new illumination instead of the candle. Electricity then come, and there was an electric bulb and all this kerosene saving had became unnecessary, but for some time it still was held for emergencies, and had then been thrown out and quickly forgotten. |
