A STRANGE STATEMENT.

West Coast Times, Issue 3889, 24 September 1881, Page 3

A STRANGE STATEMENT.

Five hundred and fifty-five thousand hours of each succestive day are spent (says the Daily Telegraph) by the inhabitants of JKurope m striking luciftr matches upon the box and otherwise. There is a Milesian • mack about this surj ris'ng statement, which, however, is altogether deceptive ; for the calculation it sets forth has been publuhf d by our Parisian contemporary the Figaro, and based upon the following curious statistics: — kiirope, Continental and insular, consumes two milliards of matches f aily. As uming that t ach several act of ignition occupies the brief period of one second, and w e have reason to believe that it is rarely performed in a shorrer time-it will be obvious to every ready reckoner that the above-mentioned amazing number of hours must be diurnally devoted to the production of artificial light by fric.ion, in our quarter of the Globe alone. There is food for much quaint speculation in the seemingly anomalous fact that Europeans dispose of nearly 64 years per diem in scraping tiny sticks, tipped with some infl immable composition upon sympathetic substances of various descriptions. "Fiat lux "should surely be the device of an age so profusely addicted to "striking a light." It is also interesting to learn that 400,000 cubic yards of timber and 420,0001 b weight of phosphorus are in annual r< quest for the manufacture of the 730000,000 of matches used up by Europe in the course of every year.