OT kerosene lantern?

Once in a while in cowboy movie, someone wakes up in the morning and turns up the kerosene lantern, without lighting it.

Is it actually possible to keep a small flame burning all night, small enough that it doesn't waste substantial money by burning all night, at cowboy-era prices?

Reply to
micky
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That never made any sense to me, but it probably was just to save time in the movie.

What surprises me more is when they turn down a lamp in the bedroom, the room goes dark, and they their heads and pillows become lit up - as if they were on a movie set or something!

Reply to
Pico Rico

You can get the pretty low but there will be a little light. Not quite like TV though.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Hi, Even smallest flame gives out some heat. In dead winter that can make quite a difference. Read the story about Napoleon's men dying from freezing sleeping in tent but ones who had a candle burning did not die.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Tony Hwang wrote in news:VCbKv.13034$ snipped-for-privacy@fx22.iad:

A single candle puts out enough heat to make the difference, in a Russian winter, between life and death?

Yeah, riiiiiight.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Hi, I spent quite a bit of time as Scout leader when my boy was growing up. Obviously you never slept out door in dead winter or have survival training? Canadian winter is pretty deadly too. Read the book about Napoleon's expedition to Russia.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I assume that is just rich people who keep the lantern burning all night. For your basic farmer, when the lights are out the will usually be out until sunup. Matches were not all that cheap either and not that available if you were really out in the boonies..

I also bet Kerosene was pretty expensive in 19th or early 20th century dollars. That is how the Rockefellers got so rich.

Reply to
gfretwell

Anything is possible in a TV studio. One thing they don't show you in those cowboy movies is what happens when some cowboy used to blowing out the kerosene lamp at bedtime goes to one of those fancy hotels with the new- fangled gas lights.

Reply to
rbowman

farmers got up well before sunup, and thus lit the lanterns before sunup. Still do.

Reply to
Pico Rico

My in laws were deoression era farmers living off the grid in southern Indiana and they say their alarm clock was the roosters at dawn. Bedtime was shortly after dark if not right at dark. Artificial light was a luxury.

Some of them still keep that schedule ;-)

Reply to
gfretwell

That's EXACTLY where they were. The gaffer (in the Industry the person in charge of lighting the set) designs the light to fall where and how intensely the director wants it.

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

winter, between

Depending how well insulated the tent was, between the candle and the men's body heat, it's possible.

The Inuit -- before the whites destroyed their 10,000-year-old culture - co uld build an igloo expertly very quickly. Once inside & sealed up, they li t a stone lamp burning seal oil. It would make the igloo so warm that the Inuit slept naked between fur blankets.

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

I've heard to always turn down and then blow out the flame when going to bed. For safety.

Not heard the Napoleon story. I'd love to read that, if you have URL. Might be good idea to buy candle lantern, and several candles sized for the lantern.

A couple decades ago, I heard of a "Palmer Furnace". This is when a lost camper in the winter wraps self in a garbage bag, and uses a candle for heat. It sounds better than freezing, but at great risk for lighting the bag on fire.

I'll copy in the alt survival list, where this might be on topic.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Years ago, I had email I reposted around. In the Moscow winter, the electric stayed on most of the time. Folks would take a filament light bulb to bed with them to help keep from freezing.

They had expression of parting in the evening which translates roughly as "Hope to see you alive in the morning."

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Great advantages to that. For example, after dark is when the dance halls, casinos, and saloons are destroying peoples lives. Also when six foot plus tall "unarmed" teens are breaking cops eye sockets with punches, and trying to seize cops guns. You're much safer and healthier to be home.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Actually it does. Winter survival training (one of the reasons I hate snow) a snow cave shealter with one candle (small group of people) will keep the inside above freezing. Still cold but livable)

Reply to
NotMe

Great advantages to that. For example, after dark is when the dance halls, casinos, and saloons are destroying peoples lives. Also when six foot plus tall "unarmed" teens are breaking cops eye sockets with punches, and trying to seize cops guns. You're much safer and healthier to be home.

Reply to
BurfordTJustice

Hi, Of course, sleep in the tent without any heat source, in the morning frosty sparkles on the tent ceiling. Sleep with lantern on or a candle burning, in the morning no frost in the ceiling of the tent. When we're going out on winter survival training, some times not even a tent. We have to dig snow cave and make bed with dry leaves with pine boughs, sleep in arctic sleeping bag.

Heard this story? during Korean war, when Marines were retreating thru no man's land in the mountains up North Eastern North Korea, Chinese reds sneaked in in the dark and carried away marines sleeping in sleeping bags in bitter cold. Many of them became POW that way. My dad was a military civilian attached to 2nd marine div. G2 as POW interrogation interpreter. Arctic sleeping bag is rated for -50 deg. C. But when it is windy, it could be -70 deg. C weathe(wind chill) If you spit it'll freeze B4 it hits the ground.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Kerosene was cheaper than whale oil, which had become too expensive for many people, and the price continued to drop. Rockefeller had the business ethics of a shark, but the growth of Standard Oil wasn't necessarily bad for the consumer, particularly in the middle of a price war. Even Ida Tarbell wasn't upset size and efficiency of Standard Oil, just the predatory tactics used by Rockefeller.

Reply to
rbowman

I've spent several winters in a small camping trailer in southern Arizona. Nights can get pretty chilly, enough that I've had leftover coffee in a cup frozen in the morning. I was using an Alladin lantern for light, and it also kept the trailer pleasantly warm. After mantles and kerosene became difficult to find, I switched to a LED headlamp for reading and really noticed the difference in the comfort level.

Alladin seems to have went down the home decor road and are pretty expensive these days but if you can find one they're a whole different animal than a kerosene lamp with just a wick. I believe the mantels are easier to find too. Thorium was used in the mantles and it produces minuscule amounts of radium-224. You would have to eat a mantle to even come close to the normal yearly radiation dose but it was too much for the Nannies. Searching for a politically correct alternative and perfecting the new manufacturing techniques took several years during which the stocks of the thorium based mantles were used up.

I'm surprised the Chinese haven't done an Alladin knockoff.

Reply to
rbowman

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