Note 98 — Chapter XV

The splendid discovery of Sir Humphry Davy, that flame does not pass through fine wire-gauze, prevents the fatal explosion of inflammable air in the mines, by which thousands of lives have been lost. By means of a light enclosed in a wire-gauze lantern, a miner now works with safety surrounded by fire-damp. To the honour of the illustrious author of this discovery, be it observed that it was not, like that of gunpowder and others, the unforeseen result of chance by new combinations of matter, but the solution of a question based on scientific experiment and induction, which it required the genius of a philosophic mind like his to arrive at.