From the late 1800's to around WW1 early in the 20th century, bicycles were an important form of transport. And here in Europe with the high latitude, and thus the long winter nights, reliable lighting was essential. Clearly this was a safety item.
This was before battery or generator powered incandecent lighting, and certainly well before LEDs.
The solution was the same type of lantern used by miners. Water was dripped slowly onto calcium carbide. This made acetylene gas, which was burned.
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As I was leaving the flea market in Belgium yesterday I saw an old man with a box of junk. I found this lamp in it. He was asking EUR 12- which is about $15- US. Since this lamp is very easily worth $50 to $75 (if any knowledgable collector were foolish enough to sell it) I jumped on it.
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If you clik on the picture it will enlarge and you can see how incredibly detailed their work was back then.
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If you want to see some more of the carbide bike lamps in my collection scroll down to the bottom of my pictures of the lamps in my collection of European pre-electric lighting: LINK http://tinyurl.com/p7egd
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This link takes you to an older blog entry on the subject from my archives: http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbide-bicycle-lamps.html
also
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/2070/251712668509679/1600/Bike%20Lamp%20Carbide%20_.jpg
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