Ship's Lanterns, Rush Candles, Frog Lanterns &c

[The Doctor]

Nah, Dorian, I'm used to being wrong. I'm married!

[Dorian Lasseter]

Pray tell me ye didn't marry Mrs. Right....

[Black Syren]

Aye I heard that Deadlights were referred to as the eyes. This is very intresting and will look at the link as well.

[The Doctor]

Pray tell me ye didn't marry Mrs. Right....

I married Mrs. "Right Just About As Often As Me"...

[LongTom]

Pray tell me ye didn't marry Mrs. Right....

:angry:

Hey, you know Alice? Alice Right?

[blackjohn]

I though deadlights also meant eyes.... *shruggs* "Close yer deadlights!"

My edition of Grose has "Day Lights" as being slang for eyes.

I have checked two very good books on the fitting of ships from the late-16th to early-19thC and have found nothing on deck prisms. I've found alot on wiindows, companionways, deck gratings, etc., but nothing on the little jewels.

[Captain Bob]

Hmmm... Deadlights are cool!

So. About the lanterns -- was oil used in the GAOP or were candles all they had? What did the lanterns look like?

~~Cap'n Bob

[CaptainJackRussell]

They should be having oil, I guess. Even the romans had oil lanterns, so why not the 18th century?

Lanterns where made of tin with a lot of holes, just enough to let a little light outside and keeping the wind away. If more light was needed and no wind there, they just opened the little door (as seen in "Master And commander). The also used animal (pork was common) parchment or even the dried ***(missing english word...inside of body where the kidneys put their leftovers in), also commonly from pig.

Glass lanterns seem to appear approx. 100 years later.

Also a common source of light keen seems to be. Resin-keeping wood out of the center of dead pinewood burns like hell.

As firestarters matches where frequently appearing, but quite dangerous because they have been made of phosphor and salpeter. The tinderbox and a striker as well as matchcord where used to start fire or to carry it along.

Fair winds,

Jack

[Rumba Rue]

You can find the deck prisms at Preston's Ships & Seas.

Preston's

The catalog I have states: In the days before electricity, light below a vessel's deck was limited to candles, oil and kerosene lamps. A clever solution for the light problem was a deck prism. Laid flush into the deck, the prism point drew light down below decks.

Hope this answers any questions and where to buy them.

[hitman]

Resin-keeping wood out of the center of dead pinewood burns like hell.

If I understand you correctly that be what I call fat lighter. You are most certinaly right in that it burns like hell fire itself and is the best kindling wood one can get Imho

[Patrick Hand]

that be what I call fat lighter

Or fat pine........(same thing.... just different names fer it....)

[kass]

They should be having oil, I guess. Even the romans had oil lanterns, so why not the 18th century?

Jack, the Romans also had indoor plumbing and a complex system of roads, which didn't emerge again until the 20th century. Don't make the leap that if oil lamps existed anciently, they existed continuously since then. That's a dangerous assumption.

I can't think of any oil lamps in use in the early 18th century. All kinds of candle lanterns, but not oil. Of course I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject. Just can't remember seeing them in any pictures or museums...

Does anyone know when oil lamps were used? Did it take the whale oil industry to bring oil lamps back into the Western world?

[hitman]

They had Oil lamps for stage lights in the GAOP don't see why they wouldn't be used else where. Here is a sight for the stage lights

http://www.stage-lighting-museum.com/html/.../17fr-rest.html

[kass]

Not necessarily, Hitman. There are plenty of types of lights used in the theatre that aren't used anywhere else. Theatre lights have different qualities than domestic lighting -- they have to be brighter at longer distances and they don't have to be terribly efficient.

The problem is that I have searched and searched online for 18th century lighting fixtures and all I've found are lanterns and chandeliers that hold candles. No oil lamps. But I haven't even found any rush lights and I know they existed.

[Patrick Hand]

In "The Book of Buckskinning IV" there is a chapter "Lighting the Primitive Camp"

It showes some fat lamps, that are period, but dosen't say what the date is for Betty and Ipswitch Betty lamps...... It also showes three rush holders, but dosen't Date them......

But a few quotes from the chapter..... just for fun......

"The producthio of light has always had an economic factor that is not ofren considered. It was only in times of relative prosperity that light fuels other than wood were used, because all the other fuels are edible."

"By 1750 there was a development that allowed the more convenient burning of oil; the various kinds of drop-wick or vertical-wick tube lamps. These lamps were made possible by improved techniques of obtaining thinner oils that could be drawn up a vertical wick. Whale oil was also beginning to be used to a greater extent."

[Red Dog]

I think the main concern with the use of an open flame below deck is the reson this wouldn't have been too common.

In alot of the articals I've read, it was a flogging offence to have a candel or uncovered pipe below deck. Peticularly around the powder stores. The lighter, more fine priming powder was known to seep through barrels and canvas and hang in the air like dust. I know anyone working in the powder magazine wore felt slippers and used copper knives and picks to avoid static sparks.

Thoe holds must have been a pain to move around in.

[Captain Bob]

RE: torches...

Were torches always just a stick with a fire on one end or were they more complicated than that? In more than one movie I've seen (not documentaries) characters wrap a cloth around a stick and dip it in flammable liquid, thus making a torch. Was it really that simple?

Also, if you wanted to light a lamp, fire, torch, or even your pipe, what did you use? I presume matches were a few years away yet (lighters, too). What was the GAOP equivalent to a book of matches?

~~Cap'n Bob

[hitman]

Ok on the subject of lamps I got a little more info but as always it's a little thin and leaves more to guess but here goes

First up an 18th century oil lamp

http://www.sciencetech.technomuses.ca/engl...recieuse/huile/

no nautical application there to my eye.

Next Indian oil lamps from the 16th,17th,and 18th cent.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...s%3Den%26sa%3DN

Time frame is covered but not local although to be honest these are the only thing that even looks like I'd light on a tall ship.

Next up is an example of Theatere lighting from the 17th cent.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...s%3Den%26sa%3DN

I posted this as an example of how little lamps changed over time. To be honest this is like most lamps I've found in my net search they really are just reincarnation's of early clay oil lamps just made in metal.

Last but not least the closest thing I can get to time frame availability and local .....the "Betty Lamp"

http://www.ramshornstudio.com/early_lighting_2.htm

Agian it's just like a Roman (or earlier) oil lamp in metal. It appears to be OoP but I never found a hard start date for it so LATE period it may be. I can't find any thing that would counter the idea of candles as the main means of lighting but it does not appear oil lamps ever disappeared from the scene. As to fuel it appears from what I've seen animal fat was primary in lamps until kerosene swept in. Although whale oil was great it was expensive at over $2.00 a gallon or $200.00 a gallon in moderen terms to quote one sites estimate and early mixtures of alchool and turpentine were also expensive and prone to go BOOM!!!! all by there selves. Even worse were the home brew concotions that people cooked up to save money.(All of these alternitaves are OoP but thought you might like to know.) I doubt this is THE final thought on this but my final thought of this post is that oil lamps were exsistant may have been used in GAOP era taverns and homes (in witch case they'd burn animal fat most likely) but most likely never went to sea. It also appears from what I can see that theatere lights in 17th and early 18th century weren't much diffrent than home lighting (Not really disagreeing with you here Kass) witch to some degree makes sense at this point given the relative lack of advances in lighting from the stone age to that point and as a side note if I recall correctly the "globe" that surronds most lights today to diffuse and spread light was an invention for theatre that quickly spread to home use. However obviously lime lights and arc lights never made it big on the residential side

[Rumba Rue]

I can't remember where I read it, but ships did keep what's called a 'smoking lamp' on board, usually near the galley. Most likely a simple wick lantern that the globe could be raised up for lighting other things, like the cannons.

[michaelsbagley]

In an effort to revise this thread based on the interest on a different thread...

I did find this...

From Esquemeling’s Buccaneers of America Page 20.

"Such is the vellow saunder, which by the inhabitants is called bois de chandel, or, in English, candle-wood, because it burns like a candle, and serves them with light while they fish by night. Here grows, also, Lignurm Sanctum, or Guaiacum. Its virtues are very well known, more especially, to those who observe not the seventh commandment, and are given to impure copulations! - physicians drawing hence, in several compositions, the greatest antidote for venereal diseases, as also for cold and viscous humors. The trees, likewise, which afford gummi elemi, grow here in great abundance, as doth radix Chince, or China root. Yet this is not so good as that of other parts of the western world. It is very white and soft, and serves for pleasant food to the wild boars, when they can find nothing else."

[William Brand]

I am resurrecting this thread for the purpose of asking about lanterns, specifically ship lanterns (i.e. horn pane, glass, pierced, etc.) Most of this thread covers lights sources such as open flames (i.e., candles, oil lamps, etc.), but I need ship lantern sources.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[michaelsbagley]

And a google search found me these... You'll need to scroll about two thirds of the way down the linked page....

History of Pendant Lamps

To find these lamps...

and

[The Chapman]

For close work in dim light a glass globe filled with water, according to a source (around here somewhere), was I guess known as a shoemaker's or lacemaker's lamp; it was placed between a candle and the work being done. The same effect can be achieved using, say, a round goldfish-type bowl. I've tried it, it works pretty well.

I have also read that reflectors, mirrors or polished metal, were also sometimes used.

[blackjohn]

In a bit of a hurry, so I'll be brief... linky linky.

[William Brand]

Excellent. Thank you for the fine link.