safety lamp

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A miner's lamp with a protective wire gauze surrounding the flame to prevent ignition of flammable gases.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In mining, a form of lamp intended for use in coal-mining, the object of the arrangement being to prevent the inflammable gas by which the miner is often surrounded from being set on fire, as would be the case were the flame not protected from contact with the gas. The basis of the safety-lamp, an invention of Sir Humphry Davy in 1816, is the fact, discovered by him, that flame cannot be communicated through a fine wire gauze. About 784 apertures to the square inch is the number generally adopted, the lamp being surrounded by a cylinder, about an inch and a half in diameter, made of a metallic gauze of this description. Various improvements have been made by Clanny. George Stephenson, Mueseler, and others, in the safety-lamp as originally devised by Davy. Stephenson's lamp is called by the miners a geordie. The Mueseler lamp is the one chiefly used in Belgium, and has been introduced in England. The essential feature of the Davy lamp remains in all these improvements, the object of which is to get more light, to secure a more complete combustion of the oil, and to prevent the miners from using the lamp without the gauze.

Wiktionary

1. n. A miner's lamp designed to avoid explosion by enclosing the flame in fine wire gauze.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. a miner's lamp in which the flame is surrounded by fine wire gauze, preventing the kindling of dangerous explosive gases; -- called also, from Sir Humphry Davy the inventor, Davy lamp.
2. (Mining) See under Lamp.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an oil lamp that will not ignite flammable gases (methane)