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The recent message from Tony Woolrich got me looking at my copy of Boulton "Practical Coal Mining", vol 3 (in my version - as discussed previously on the list), c 1910 which says (as Tony states): 'Acetylene gas from carbide of calcium has been applied to safety lamps both in Canada and Germany, and gives a splendid light, but it is too cumbersome, and is not in use underground at the present time.' This reminded me of a statement about lighting in 'The Boy's [Play]book of Science', c 1899 which says (about domestic lighting) along with a diagram looking just like a modern tungsten filament bulb: ' The cost of each lamp is said to be one shilling, although it is difficult to see how such a delicate piece of apparatus could be constructed for such a small sum. It is also not easy to understand how such a fragile thing can ever stand the every-day rough usage to which domestic lamps are exposed. The general use of gas in dwelling houses is greatly due to the ease with which they can be manipulated, and the little risk there is of getting them out of order by rough treatment. We may be quite sure that if they are to be superseded, it must be by something which will bear harder knocks than a bulb of glass.' And there was me thinking that gas lamp mantles were fragile! This all goes to show that there was some resistance to change around the early 1900s. Incidentally when was electric lighting introduced to mines? Roger http://www.the-mansion.co.uk/