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In the 1880s, Austrian chemist and engineer Carl Auer von Welsbach invented the gas mantle. It is a mesh fabric bag infused with a chemical and metal solution that generates a bright white light when heated by a gas flame. The technology greatly improved gas lighting. Soon lamps using gas mantles filled streets and homes in North America and Europe for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That same technology, perfected over more than 100 years, remains one of two technologies for outdoor natural gas lamps on the market today. A Primary Light Source Lamps using a gas mantle, also called a Welsbach mantle, are sometimes used as a primary outdoor lighting source. A single gas mantle generates the same amount of light as a 50-watt electric bulb, but uses the energy of a pilot light. "They are similar to what you see in a Coleman camping…