Kerosene lamp

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The light of kerosene lamp. Soundless fire, delicate, controlled, bright. Today it is hard to remember, but its light witnessed the lives of a few generations. Malopolska is its… cradle. It was here that Ignacy Łukasiewicz, future constructor of the lamp, at the end of 1852 and beginning of 1853, distilled kerosene for the first time, using local oil deposits and at the same time started the greatest industry, fundamental to the contemporary world. Today Poland produces minimum amounts of oil, but the pumps are still there, standing in the fields of Malopolska. It all started here.

więcej »