Davy’s safety-lamp proved exactly what was needed to act as protection from exploding fire-damp. It was tried under all conditions and served admirably. George Stephenson had worked out a somewhat similar safety-lamp at about the same time, and his was used in the collieries around Newcastle. In the rest of England Davy’s lamp was at once adopted. All miners were equipped with either the Davy lamp or the “Geordie” lamp, as the other was called, and the mine fatalities from fire-damp immediately decreased. This lamp is still the main safeguard of those who have to contend with dangerous explosive gases in mines all over the world. Friends urged Davy to patent his lamp, and thus ensure himself a very considerable income from its sale. But he said, “I never thought of such a thing: my sole object was to serve the cause of humanity; and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded in the gratifying reflection of having done so. I have enough for all my views and purposes; more wealth could not increase either my fame or my happiness. It might undoubtedly enable me to put four horses to my carriage; but what would it avail me to have it said that Sir Humphrey drives his carriage and four?” [Illustration: THE DAVY SAFETY LAMP] His fellow men appreciated the great value of this service he had rendered. At Newcastle, the centre of the mining country, a dinner was given in his honor, and a service of plate, worth over twelve thousand dollars, was presented to him. The Emperor of Russia sent him a magnificent silver-gilt vase, with a letter congratulating him on his great achievement, and the King of England made him a baronet. Davy himself, in spite of his reputation as a chemist, placed this invention above all his other work. “I value it more than anything I ever did,” said he. “It was the result of a great deal of investigation and labor; but if my directions be attended to, it will save the lives of thousands of poor men. I was never more affected than by a written address which I received from the working colliers when I was in the north, thanking me on behalf of themselves and their families for the preservation of their lives.”