The Argand lamp is a type of

oil lamp An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. The ...

invented in 1780 by Aimé Argand. Its output is 6 to 10

candela The candela (symbol: cd) is the unit of luminous intensity in the International System of Units (SI). It measures luminous power per unit solid angle emitted by a light source in a particular direction. Luminous intensity is analogous to radi ...

s, brighter than that of earlier lamps. Its more complete combustion of the candle wick and oil than in other lamps required much less frequent trimming of the wick. In France, the lamp is called "Quinquet", after Antoine-Arnoult Quinquet, a

pharmacist A pharmacist, also known as a chemist in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, is a healthcare professional who is knowledgeable about preparation, mechanism of action, clinical usage and legislation of medications in ...

in Paris, who used the idea originated by Argand and popularized it in France. Quinquet sometimes is credited with the addition of the glass chimney to the lamp.

Design

The Argand lamp had a sleeve-shaped wick mounted so that air can pass both through the center of the wick and also around the outside of the wick before being drawn into a cylindrical chimney which steadies the flame and improves the flow of air. Early models used ground glass which was sometimes tinted around the wick. An Argand lamp used

whale oil Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train-oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' ("tear drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil used in the cavities of sperm whales, ...

, seal oil, colza,

olive oil Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a cond ...

or other

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of edible plants. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed ...

as fuel which was supplied by a gravity feed from a reservoir mounted above the burner. A disadvantage of the original Argand arrangement was that the oil reservoir needed to be above the level of the burner because the heavy, sticky vegetable oil would not rise far up the wick. This made the lamps top heavy and cast a shadow in one direction away from the lamp's flame. The Carcel lamp of 1800, which used a clockwork pump to allow the reservoir to sit beneath the burner, and Franchot's spring-driven Moderator lamp of 1836 avoided these problems. The same principle was also used for cooking and boiling water due to its 'affording much the strongest heat without smoke'.

History

The Argand lamp was introduced to

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

in Paris in 1784 and according to him gave off "a light equal to six or eight candles." These new lamps, much more complex and costly than the previous primitive oil lamps, were first adopted by the wealthy, but soon spread to the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...

es and eventually the less well-off as well. Argand lamps were manufactured in a great variety of decorative forms and quickly became popular in America. They were much used as theatrical footlights. It was the lamp of choice until about 1850 when kerosene lamps were introduced.

Kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

was cheaper than vegetable oil, it produced a whiter

flame A flame () is the visible, gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic chemical reaction made in a thin zone. When flames are hot enough to have ionized gaseous components of sufficient density, they are then considered plasm ...

, and as a liquid of low

viscosity Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's rate-dependent drag (physics), resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighboring portions relative to one another. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of ''thickness''; for e ...

it could easily travel up a wick eliminating the need for complicated mechanisms to feed the fuel to the burner.

Notes

References

History of the lamp
*Dimond, E. W.
The Chemistry of Combustion
' (E R Fiske, 1857), p. 139 ff. * Wolfe, John J., ''Brandy, Balloons, & Lamps: Ami Argand, 1750–1803'' (Southern Illinois University, 1999) .

External links

{{Lighthouses Swiss inventions Lighthouse fixtures Oil lamp de:Öllampe#Argandbrenner

Design

History

See also

Notes

References

External links