Ahh well, I have two from "Generation" and tried a Clark once, the sound really wasn't particularly nice.
I am conducting a test burn, after having coated the lamp with with polyurethane. I am using an unrolled and twisted cotton ball as the wick, and vegetable oil instead of olive oil. I have learned that it is best not to have the wick sticking out of the lamp (Burns dirty) and that it draws air in from the fill hole. I wonder how things work with different styles. I put in one ounce of oil, which supposedly lasts for around two hours, and it has been burning for almost an hour. So far it seems less messy and risky than a candle, except maybe tealights.
At first it resembles french fries, then it smelled like dirty greasiness, of that makes sense. It was outside, so it didn't build up like it would in an enclosed space. Supposedly olive oil doesn't smell as bad. I want to try it out like that, inside, next, then I may try adding some essential oil.
Modern oil lamps use paraffin (I also have one of these for power outages...which we had this morning). Long before that olive oil (and probably other common oil) was used. So originally it was olive oil, but we are talking thousands of years ago. I have read that ghee was also used, but that is probably closer to a candle.
I'd rather you didn't encourage the slaughter of whales that way, or at least knew what you were doing before purchasing any.
