Abstract
IN my note I had no intention of disparaging the very ingenious invention of Mr. E. H. Liveing; on the contrary, I wished, while commenting on a new application of the same principle, to recall the fact that the credit of utilising the increased glow of a heated wire over which a methane-air mixture is drawn, as a measure of the methane present, is due to Mr. Liveing. Like Prof. Boys, I tested the apparatus both near working faces and in the return airways of mines which gave off fire-damp. Although I cannot claim to approach Prof. Boys's unique experience in photometric work, I had had several years' practice in comparing the illuminating power of lights—and especially of lights of different tints—and I found it possible to make concordant readings with the instrument. But my companions—men of great mining experience—did not agree with my readings, or with each other's. The impression formed by me was that the indicator was not adopted because the mine-managers thought (rightly or wrongly) the instrument allowed too much margin to the ‘personal equation’.
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Liveing's Fire-Damp Indicator. Nature 118, 627 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118627a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118627a0
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