As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was watching what I do not remember on some television that Uncle had on, when a reference appeared from some skirt about a Perpetual Lamp. As I miss nothing, I was puzzled as to what on earth this Perpetual Lamp was, so I forgot about it, and then TL mentioned it, so I started looking around and found these interesting references.
There is a curious reference of asbestos to fire, and the heat of the sun, in "The Ecstatic Journey to Heaven" of Kircher, where Casmiel, the genius of this world, gives Theodidaktos a boat of asbestos to embark in for his travels to and on the sun, the centre of heat. See "Itinerar 1, Dialogue 1," cap. 5.
Irish lore recounts a mysterious everburning flame in the Temple at Kildare, sacred to St. Bridget-Daughter of Fire.-See Giraldus Cambrensis, De Mirab. Hibern. 2, xxxiv.
Khunrath, in his "Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae," cites the ancient author of "The Apocalypse of the Sweet Spirit of Nature," as speaking of a liquid which burneth with a bright light and wastes not.
At the dissolution of the Monasteries in Britain, by order of Henry VIII., a tomb, in Yorkshire, purporting to be that of Constantius Chlorus, father of the Great Constantine, was opened and ransacked, and a lamp burning was found in it: he died 300 A.D.-See Camden "Brittania" (Gough's edition, III. p. 572.)
Lazius, in his "Comment. Reipub. Romae," writes that the Romans under the Empire possessed the secret of preserving lights in tombs by means of the oiliness of gold, resolved by their art into a fluid.-See lib. III., cap. 18.
That is interesting what the ancients referenced which will be touched on later.
Then there was this theory.
For centuries the answer to the riddle of what type of renewable fuel the ancients used has remained a mystery. About a year ago, when I first became interested in this subject, I came across an obscure report of someone opening a tomb and finding strange “liquid silver drops” on the floor. It had an ever-burning lamp in it, but somehow it had broken. I immediately thought back to the thermometer I broke as a child and seeing the liquid mercury beads go scattering. My mother warned me not to touch them and immediately vacuumed them up before disposing of the bag. I was sure the “silver drops” in the tomb were mercury.Mercury was the key tool of the early alchemist along with sulfur and salt. These were believed to be the Earth’s three principal substances, also called Body (Salt), Soul (Sulfur) and Spirit (Mercury). The ancient alchemists used them in combination to perform what often appeared as magic. Mercury has some interesting effects. It can be extremely volatile and has been coined the “Eagle.” Unless it is effectively contained and sealed, it rises into the air and is lost.In 1675 a French astronomer named Jean-Felix Picard made a remarkable observation. He was carrying a mercury barometer, when he noticed that the empty-space glowed as the mercury jiggled. Many people tried to explain this phenomenon, among which an English scientist named Francis Hauksbee, who was the first to demonstrate a gas-discharge lamp in 1705, operated with static electricity. 100 years later, Vasily V. Petrov, a Russian self-taught electrical technician, described for the first time the phenomenon of the electrical arc, which led to different kinds of discharge light sources. One such type of high-intensity discharge lamp uses mercury-vapor.
How would such a mercury-vapor lamp work? A gas discharge lamp is a light source that generates light by creating an electrical discharge through ionized gas. In other words, ionized gas from the heated mercury builds up in the sealed tomb, creating a self-sustaining electrical charge that fuels the light. Mercury has thermal conductivity, gives off heat, and can act much like a fusion reactor under certain conditions. I’m no scientist, but you can find a lot about how mercury works by searching the Internet, and it adds up. Perhaps this mystery is no mystery at all and a modern-day alchemist (aka chemical engineer) can verify this.
It’s interesting to note it was often reported that when a tomb was opened, the light went out. This would make sense if built up gas in the tomb is released. This may also explain why so many tomb robbers and archeological workers reported feeling acutely ill after entering many of these tombs. They were being exposed to mercury vapor poisoning—an invisible and odorless enemy. Maybe the Ancients intended to place such a toxic and deadly curse on any who should disturb their final resting place. Somewhere down the line, they had to suspect something in the tombs was hazardous to one’s health. As a result, it was not uncommon for those opening a tomb to first drill two holes in the vault door, thereby allowing the gas (or evil spirits) to escape prior to entering.
agtG
