User:Orekhova/Sandbox

Lamp SGD5

Konogonka (as well known as lamp, the correct name is head lamp) - an individual lighting unit, used by miners. The name comes from the name of profession - konogon (horse driver) - worker accompanying an underground horse haulage. It is him, who was "being carried with a broken head" as says an old miner's song. Konogoni were the first who started wearing safety lamps at the cap band.

History In the earliest days of the coal mining miners used homemade lights, that were flat dishes or jars with oil or oil-fuel, with a wick in it. It was a very unsophosticated accessary, heavy smoking, and its light was very weak. These primitive lamps were replaced by portable oil lamps with a closed reservoir that were used until the middle of 19th century. In different countries, they were distinct from each other only in a reservoir form. Wild-turnip oil served as fuel. Such lamp was a metal tank, with a wick inserted inside. A small bracket was attached to the metal tank, which carried a hook for hanging the lamp. Flame lamp was uncovered, therefore, this lamp was very explosive. Miners used to call it "God-speed" - these words were written on each lamp. You can imagine what kind of light these lamps produced and how many lamps had to be hang in the drift to create at least some lighting. Then the profession of lamp carrier appeared. His duties included hanging lamps in the drift so that hauler had had the slightest chance to see the way, through that mined coal was being exported. Due to increasing coal industry mines became deeper, therefore methane appeared in the mines; methane-burning was proposed as a control method. Such burnings were usually carried out between shifts, when there were no miners in the drifts. Yet burning didn’t help much, there should have been lamps that could be working in the methane environment. So the following evolution of the miners’ lamps took two directions: isolation of the open fire and construction improvement. Back in 1815, one hundred years after the first big explosion of detonating gas at a mine near Newcastle, an English chemist and physicist Sir Humfrey Davy suggested the safety lamp with a wire screen serving as a flame arrestor to illuminate the jobs of miners.