The wick also was found to be a source of trouble, as if not perfectly symmetrical the flame was irregular, and the correct adjustment of the working was upset, with the result that carbon was evolved copiously. In the later lamps the wick served merely to draw the oil up into a vaporising chamber, where it was gasified. The first lamps had a circular wick bringing the oil to within a short distance of the burner head, the heat conducted from the flame being sufficient to vaporise the oil. A central air-draught was provided, and a second air supply was arranged to meet the base of the flame almost horizontally, but although in careful hands, these lamps fulfilled their claims, yet as a commercial article they were a failure, owing to the need of constant attention and the irregularity of their performance."

Lewis was unaware, apparently of further developments in mantle lamps which had been taking place across the Atlantic during the first decade of the present century. These developments were due to the initiative and perseverance of Victor S. Johnson whose son and biographer writes of him as follows : 

"Our story of Aladdin really begins on a small Nebraska farm at the close of the last century. There, night after night when chores were done, a Young man Victor S. Johnson, would do his lessons by the flickering yellow light of an open-flame lamp. One day, the young man moved to the city. Now, there were electric lights in his house, but he never seemend to forget those nights of study by the old lamp.  The farm boy forged ahead: he had ambition to learn and was willing to work the clock round. Still the tough lingered ´perhaps some day those without electricity can have good light".

That was his wish. In 1907 he saw an imported kerosene mantle lamp which he felt might provide such light. To be sure, the lamp smoked and was anything but reliable, but it did seem to have possibilities. On this lamp, the young man hung his hope, and for the uncertain future of being one of its distributors, gave up a steady job.

It did not take the new distributor very long to realise that the lamp would have to be improved, made reliable and foolproof in operation, if it were to be the boon he wished. The only way to this was research and development, a way which became Aladdin´s guiding principle. Out of this research came the Aladdin lamp; year after year it was improved and before long Aladdin was identified as the pionier and leader of the industry. Because of that Young man´s wish, millions of people throughout the world enjoy today the quality light of Aladdin lamps."

Johnson's mantle lamp business was started as the representative in the United States of a German company believed to have been Ehrich and Graetz of Berlin who, as already stated, were among the Pioneers of mantle lamps. In 1908 Johson formed the Mantle Lamp Company of America which commenced manufacture. 

I knew Victor S. Johnson in his later years when he was the head of a succesfull corporation and between the early years when he founded the Mantle Lamp company and the 1930's when I knew him he never ceased to invent and improve. He was a big man in every way and one to whom difficulties were but the stepping stones to achievement.

The first step towards a radical change in mantle lamp design came in 1910 from Charles Hazor Smith, an inventor employed by the mantle Lamp Company of America. Prior to that date all mantle lamp construttions had copied the incandescent gas burners by suspending the mantle from a horizontal arm projecting from a supporting post disposed at one side of the burner. This arrangement could not ensure concentricity of the mantle with the wick and burner and also failed to prevent lateral displacements of the mantle. C.H. Smith's invention provided the following advantages over previous constructions:

1. For the first time the mantle support and burner cone were made as a replaceable unit,
   the mantle being suspended by the manufacturer from the centre of a wire loop whose lower ends were fixed at diametrically opposed positions to the cone (Fig. 11).

   
   

   

2. It had been found that burner cones were commonly distorted or eroded by the heat of the blue flame and consequently produced a flame of irregular shape with a diminution of incandescence.  With Smith´s invention the burner cone, which had a bayonet type connection to the burner, was renewed every time the mantle was replaced.

   
   

3. The inverted U-shaped loop with the mantle suspended from its centre ensured concentricity with the burner, cone, wick tubes and wick.

   
   

4. The mantle skirt fitted over the burner cone and was thereby prevented from lateral displacement.

   
   

5. Smith's flame spreader had a tapered perforated top and slots in its side wall arranged for evenly distributing air to the bane of the flame and the interior of the mantle.

This invention, including its improved design of burner, was succesfully exploited in the United States but its exploication in Great Britain was delayed by the first World War. The  Britisch patent was maintained in force, however, and received the extension of two years given to all patents by the Patents Act of 1919. It was thus due to expire in 1926, but an application to the Court for an extensio on the ground that the invention could not be used during the war was succesful and four additional years were granted so that the patent remained in force until 1930. C. H. Smith's burner and mantle fitting was a turning point in the evolution of mantle lamps and it enabled a more efficient and easily controllable mantle lamp to be placed on the market than had been possible prevously, but much still had to be done and for the next decade the technicians of The Mantle Lamp Company of America devoted their research towards two main objects - concentricity and cooling.

Smith's invention was followed by the introduction of an improved form of flame spreader designed to prevent conduction of heat from the flame to lower parts of the burner and thereby avoid excess vaporisation of fuel and the emission of smoky unburnt products. By this time the main construction of the burner had been settled and its general form has been followed in mantle lamp constructions until the present time.

An important modification was introduced in 1917 wherein a burner of the same general construction was given two modifications:

A flame spreader with frusto-conical top, both top and sides being perforated and 

an outwardly attending lip at the upper end of the outer wick tube (Fig. 12).

The effect of these two innovations was to augment the air supply to the flame when turned up and to restrict the air supply when the flame is turned low, so that under all conditions a non-luminous flame is ensured.

 Another advantage was that due to the low position of the flame spreader it would dissipate less heat to the wick tube than was the case with previous flame spreaders. The series of improvements by the Mantle Lamp Company of America was completed in 1918 to provide a new lamp construcion wherein the entire burner was for the first time made removable from the recevoir and base of the lamp, the construction involving the separation of the inner and outer wick tube into upper and lower sections.

The inventor of these improvements described the difficulties which had by then arisen in maintaining the necessary close adjustments between  the component parts of the burner which, while satisfactoily arranged at the factory could readily become injured or ditored during transit or by the user. To avoid such defects, the inventor provided multi-section inter-engaging wick tubes which compelled the retention of predetermined adjusted relationships but without interfering with the fine adjustment of the wick. The construction was also stated to dissipate heat to the incoming air, another attempt to deal with the long-standing problem of cooling the burner parts to avoid excessive vaporisation of fuel.  By this time it had come to be generally realised that a mantle lamp is an extremely sensitive structure and that a slight injury even to the reservoir could affect the relative positions of the wick tubes and detract from the efficient operation of a lamp. From this time onwards all mantle lamps have included a burner assembly detachable as a unit.

An interresting comment on the difficulties attending the control of mantle lamps before 1922 is made in a life of Colonel T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) by Sir Ronald Storrs. In it he says :

“The hands of the Arab servants  fell heavy upon the incandescent mantles of our paraffin lamps from which a generous volcano of filthy smuts would nightly stream over the books, the carpets and everything in the room. T. E. Lawrence took the lamp situation daily in band and so long as he was there all was bright on the Aladdin front."

The burner construction with C. H. Smith´s mantle fitting was standardised by the Mantle Lamp Cornpany of America and lamps of this construction were introduced into Britain in 1919 by Jack Imber who was appointed sole sales representative of the Mantle Lamp Company of America. For their products that Company had adopted and registered the name "ALADDIN" as their trade mark, the word being derived from the well-known "Arabian Nights" story wherein a magician offered "New lamps for old." Under this name the mantle lamps were offerd for sale in this country, the design being substantially that of C H. Smith with certain modifications but with the replaceable mantle and burner units. As large area in this country were still without gas or electricity supplies, sales of the mantle lamps rapidly increaesed and Imber transformend his business into a company, Aladdin Industries Limited, which shortly ceased to import and commenced the manufacture of lamps, wicks and mantles in this country and sold them as “Aladdin lamps.” These mantle lamps were made to suit several purposes; they could be used as table lamps, reading lamps, standard lamps and hanging lamps and had the great advantage that requiring no supply pipe or cable they could be moved easily from one position to another. Practical experience with this lamp brought to light the need for further improvements and the next invention related to the construction of annular wicks.

It was found that one of the difficulties of maintaining a flame coincident with a mantle was due to the annular wicks, which were liable to be deformed during installation, while carbon formed by combustion frequently caused an irregularly shaped flame. To overcome these disadvantages a new type of wick was produced in 1922 having a reinforcing lining of adhesive tape as well as an outer reinforcement, the object being to prevent the wick being deformed by the operation of the wick raising mechanism, and to preserve concentricity with the other burner components and ensure the production of a symmetrical flame (Fig. 13).

A wick cleaning device was next evolved consisting of an annular cylindrical thimble designed to be fitted over the top of the wick and rotated. This device removes the carbon  deposit and ensures that the top of the wick lies in a plane at right angle to its axis.

The necessity for an evenly distributed air supply to the base of the mantle entailed a new construction of glas chimney. The base of this chimney is formed with projections which engage beneath projections in the chimney gallery by a partial rotary movement as the chimney is being installed to lock the chimney in correct position. Between the projections there are evenly spaced air inlets. This construction called for accuracy in manufacture, as any excess of air at one point around the base of the mantle would deflect the flame and reduce the illuminating power.

All these improvements were directed towards the end of ensuring a flame coinciding in shape and extent with the contours of the mantle. The next step was to provide new means for operating the wick, with comprised diametrically disposed studs fixed in the reinforced part of the wick releasably engaged by arms connected to the ratchet and pinion mechanism for raising and lowering the wick. This arrangement prevented damage to or disttortion of the wick by the old arrangement, wherein a spiked pinion engaged directly in the fibres of the wick and also ensured the top of the wick being maintained strictly in a borizontal plane, thereby contributing further to the maintenance of a flame of regular shape coincident with the mantle.