ABSTRACT
In the early days of underground gold mining in Egypt, it was common practice to use open oil lamps for illumination. These were open earthenware vessels containing animal or vegetable oil. Miners in the sixteenth century in Europe used to take a bundle of slivers of a resinous variety of pine wood down the mine to provide personal lighting during the shift. By about 1900 most metal mines used acetylene lamps. These consisted of a lower chamber containing calcium carbide and an upper vessel containing water. From 1920 onwards, attempts were made to produce an even greater intensity of illumination, because it was realised that this would result in fewer accidents. An electric cap lamp clipped to a miner’s helmet was then connected by a short cable to a battery mounted on the miner’s belt which was recharged on the surface at the end of each shift.
