A subscription was immediately commenced with this object, and a committee was formed, consisting of the Earl of Strathmore, C. J. Brandling, and others. The subscription list was headed by Lord Ravensworth, one of the partners in the Killingworth Colliery, who showed his appreciation of the merits of Stephenson by giving 100 guineas. C. J. Brandling and partners gave a like sum, and Matthew Bell and partners, and John Brandling and partners, gave 50 guineas each. When the resolutions appeared in the newspapers, the scientific friends of Sir Humphry Davy in London met, and passed a series of counter-resolutions, which they published, declaring their opinion that Mr. Stephenson was _not_ the author of the discovery of the fact that explosion of hydrogen will not pass through tubes and apertures of small dimensions, and that he was _not_ the first to apply that principle to the construction of a safety-lamp. To these counter-resolutions were attached the well-known names of Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S., William Thomas Brande, Charles Hatchett, W. H. Wollaston, and Thomas Young. Mr. Stephenson's friends then, to make assurance doubly sure, and with a view to set the question at rest, determined to take evidence in detail as to the date of discovery by George Stephenson of the fact in question, and its practical application by him in the formation and actual trial of his safety-lamp. The witnesses examined were George Stephenson himself, Mr. Nicholas Wood, and John Moodie, who had been present at the first trial of the lamp; the several tinmen who made the lamps; the secretary and other members of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, who were present at the exhibition of the third lamp; and some of the workmen who were present at the Killingworth Colliery, who had been witnesses of Stephenson's experiments on fire-damp made with the lamps at different times before Sir Humphry Davy's investigations had been heard of. This evidence was quite conclusive to the minds of the gentlemen who investigated the subject, and they published it in 1817, together with their Report, in which they declared that, "after a careful inquiry into the merits of the case, conducted, as they trust, in a spirit of fairness and moderation, they can perceive no satisfactory reason for changing their opinion."[47] The Stephenson subscription, when collected, amounted to £1000. Part of the money was devoted to the purchase of a silver tankard, which was presented to the inventor, together with the balance of the subscription, at a public dinner given in the Assembly Rooms at Newcastle.[48] But what gave Stephenson even greater pleasure than the silver tankard and purse of sovereigns was the gift of a silver watch, purchased by small subscriptions collected among the colliers themselves, and presented to him by them as a token of their esteem and regard for him as a man, as well as of their gratitude for the