Aime Argand and the Lamp.
A lamp of some character has been used since a period so remote that no trace of its origin is to be found, but the lamp, as we understand it, was the invention of Aime Argand, a Frenchman, and he came about the effectiveness of this lighting apparatus in a most unique way.[Pg 60]
Argand never fairly lifted himself out of the rut of poverty, but lived and died poor, disappointed and neglected. He was born at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1755, but he was living in England in 1782, when his first lamp was produced. The main feature of his lamp was that the wick fitted into a hollow cylinder, up which a current of air was allowed to pass, admitting a free supply of oxygen to the interior as well as the exterior of the circular flame.