Automatic refueling lamp

Hisashige Tnaka designed this lamp about the time of the Tenpo period (1830-1843), a time of nationwide famine and major regorms. He applied the principle of a Dutch-made "wind gun" (an air gun). Moving the lamp's cylinder up and down pressurizes the air at the bottom, and oil is thereby supplied upward to the lamp's wick. Tanaka made the wick from heavy Unsai cotton, a material used for such puiposes as the bottoms of tabi (Japanese socks with the big toe separated).