MATCHES OF OLD DAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 22 March 1928, Page 10

MATCHES OF OLD DAYS.

CURIOUS AFFAIRS.

THREE MINUTES TO GET A LIGHT. THE PORTABLE} FIREBOX.

Three "minutes was the average time required to get a light a hundred~years ago, but half-an : houf* would often be; spent tediously' with flihi. and .steel if the tinder was damp. , • Contrast this "half-hour of profanKy with the instantaneousness of the flame kindled from a., match struck on the side-of the bojc to-day!.... Mr. Miller Chrjsty, an "authority on the history of Art-making, flespribes the fljnt and steel process.thus:— '. "A piece of flint (or afty very hard flinty stone, as chert, chalcedohy, jasj>er or agate), haying a sharp cutting edge, IB struck sharply and at an angle upon the edge of a' piece of-suitably-tempered iron'or steel, so as to shave off a tiny fragment of the metal, which, being heated to a white heat is* the -result of the - concussion,: gloWji as it falls through the air, *nd, if allowed to fall upon, arty sensitive tinder, at once ignites it, thus.. enabling actual-fire to be obtained With the , aid of a sulphur match*' ■. ••' ~ > ,-;T •• '• •"The iqost familiar, form of<■. tinderbox was the round kus, made'of tin, with a candle-socket on the lid. . . Up to about t#e'year 1836 a tinder-box of this sort .'.-was:; to be found' On the kitchen-shelf of every dwelling in the' land." * • v-u ._ ; . Mr. Miller-Christy suggests that the idea of obtaining fire by rubbing two ! dry pieces of wood together occurred to the' mind of some early«savage who chanced to see two dead branches of trees take fire through friction when rubbed together by o the wind during a* storm—*** thing whieh undoubtedly happens occasionally." f. . . , Pistol Fired By Alarm Clock. < He tells 11s tliat men of the stone and bronzO ages got, sparks by striking* a nodule of the .common mineral iron*, pryites with a pointed flake of flint. N" v What do you think /of a' tinder-box pitiol, that - was fired by an alarm clock? ilarm it fired the pistol' whiph' ignited a small priming of gunjpowde'rj. 4 at the aame- : time a , candle out of tl)e interior, of the box —and was duly; lighted-!' Christy dates'"-, this Germrfn contrivance late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The "Portable Fire-box" invented in J786, contained a shlaU bottle,of, a compound of '.# phosphorus and ?• somatiny sulphur-tipped matches: when a match, waa. dipped into the bottle and Withdrawn- 'quickly -it usually burst into flame. In 1810 there'arrived the "Instantaneous Light Box," a similar contrivance, except that the match head was composed of chlorate of potash and sugar, and in ,the bottle was sulphuric acid. Here was a chance for the inventive miiid: one Henry Berry took it, and in 1824 produced an arrangement whereby you could put your hand out of bed on a dark morning, pull a string, and get a light. Just think of the wonder Of the thing as it appealed to folk a hundred year»-4goif; & £>~:v ' . ">„ » which passed over * w pulled, glass itopper •of the add .bottle was lifted; a match was brought, automatically- in contact [ with and *aa ignitedbyvflie acid On its f tonß Stopper. The*. ttobatch automatically moved on, to light a tiny spirit Jones produced at Sol, Btrandfhia "Lucifers/' a coiwr of the Ilwie were large flat" wooden splints with a toead of a solutiorf of chlorate of potash, sulphide of antlmody and gum arabic; you placed the head between the folds of a piece of sandpaper, nipited It tightly, and then drew out the match suddenly and forcibly. And if the head did not oome off your lucifer burst into flame.

There was still to add to the lucifer phosphorus; the first chemist to do this did not patent the idea. The first phosphorus match arrived in 1832 and was called the "Congreve," after Sir William of that name, who invented a war rocket.

This was the first match to be struck on the box, and from the Congreve, which was in vo#ue until the 'seventies, our modern match has developed.