Humphrey Davy, according to his contemporaries, could have chosen any one of several roads to fame. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said of him, “Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would have been the first poet of his age.” Among many activities he invented the safety-lamp, the object of which was to protect miners from the perils of exploding fire-damp. George Stephenson invented a similar device at about the same time, or a little earlier, but Davy’s lamp was the one most generally adopted, and his claim as inventor is commonly recognized, while Stephenson’s fame is secure with the perfection of the steam-locomotive and the railroad.
