Wiktionary
n. Simple lamps that produce and burn acetylene (C2H2) which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water.
Wikipedia
Carbide lamps, or acetylene gas lamps, are simple lamps that produce and burn acetylene (CH) which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC) with water.
Acetylene gas lamps were used to illuminate buildings, as lighthouse beacons, and as headlights on motor-cars and bicycles. Portable acetylene gas lamps, worn on the hat or carried by hand, were widely used in mining in the early twentieth century. They are still employed by cavers, hunters, and cataphiles.
Usage examples of "carbide lamp".
In the light of one of these candles he could easily refill the carbide lamp.
The light was a carbide lamp backed by mirrors, but the lighthouse itself was Pre-Fall work, a hundred meters tall.
He carried a carbide lamp in his hand - an elementary light made of a metal container with a long spout rising from it, at the end of which was a two-inch jet of flame that wavered in the draught.
They follow his buzzing carbide lamp to the mining shaft which at the beginning of the visit carried them from the pit bottom to the waste stall and the vent shaft.
Four Vapor Mechanics, in striped hats and leather aprons, were checking a blueprint by the harsh glare of a carbide lamp.
Those two ladies in mink, who still look quite attractive in the light of the carbide lamp, claim to have lost their faith, but they don't say in what.
North along the chain of heliograph stations a light began to blink, a slotted cover like a lever-operated Venetian blind slapping open and closed over a mirror-backed carbide lamp.