Diagram of a Carminales lamp.
The Carminales Lighting Company was a Mexican business founded in 1895 by inventor Vicente Carminales. Carminales invented a mantle lamp that burned natural gas and gave off a brighter light than the electrical light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, and due to the low price of natural gas in the U.S.M., at less than half the cost. The availability of the Carminales mantle lamp retarded the electrification of Mexico; Sobel notes that there were more Carminales lamps than Edison lights in Mexico until 1946. Sobel also states that Carminales lamps remain in general use in the Mexican states of Durango and Chiapas. The financing for the Carminales Lighting Company came from Kramer Associates, and it is likely that the C.L.C. was transferred to the control of United Dry Goods during the Jackson restructuring.
Sobel's source for the Carminales Lighting Company is John Flaherty's The Carminales Legacy: Mexico's Edison (London, 1971).