The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-10-23
Primitive Modes of Striking Fire.

LII carly dSesJ "hon WIZ III "oo.,N
the noble savage ran" compliance with
the request, "Will you give me light,
please?" involved, if the camp fires had
gone out, spell of unremitting hard
work, considerable manual de1terity,
and an unstinted application of &C elbow
grease" The primitive mode of strik-
ing fire was by rubbing one piece of dry
wood upon another until incandescence
was induced. A tribe of South Ameri-
can savages improved upon the dry
wood friction process. They discovered
that they could generate showers OF
sparks by the sharp abrasive contact OF
a certain kind OF pyrites upon siliceous
or finty stones. The sparks directed
upon quantity Of dry, readily-in fam;
mable fibrous material obtained flame,
with comparatively little trouble beyond
procuring and preparing materials. In
the matter of "striking light" the
human family remained in state of
comparative ba-barism till a period
almost within the recollection of many
juniors of "the oldest inhabitant." Our
grandmothers kept the kitchen fire
aight all night by placing a block OF
coal upon it, and packing it with small
coal or ashes, so as to allow it to smold-
er only till the morning. The first
triumph of "applied science in
striking light" lay in the discovery
of the combined capabilities of burned
linen, or tinder, flint and steel, and
birthstone. tipped wood matches, or
"spunks," as they were sometimes
called. The tinder was usually domes.
tic production, the tinder-boxes and
steefs, or "frizzies." were made at Bir-
mingham and Wolverhampton, England,
where considerable business was done
in these articles. The flint was had
from where it could be picked UP, and
the manufacturers and vendors OF the
matches were chiefly poor old women.
The steel was of the form of the letter
y elongated and reversed, the narrower
stalk being the handle; the broader.
which had serrated outer edge, was
used for striking the piece of flint, and
producing the sparks that ignited the
tinder, which in turn lighted the brim-
stone-tipped match. The lighted tin
der, when it had served its purpose. was
extinguished by a close fitting inner
cover that was pressed down upon it.
The flint and steel were also used for
lighting match-paper-thick porous
paper that hal been dipped in q solution
of saltpeter and afterward dried. The
match paper was held close to the piece
of flint, with its edge at the point of inn
pact with the steel. 1t ignited readily
and burned freely, but without flame.
Amadou, or German tinder, and ''touch-
WOOD" being woody tissue in II certain
stage OF decay. were sometimes used in
the same way as match-paper.
The methods of initiating fire, as has
been seen, we're, up to this point, by
rude mechanical expedients. 1t is only
during the last half century that science
may be said to have been applied to the
manufacture of matches. One OF the
earliest novelties was the instantape-
ous lighting box," which contained a
bottle charged with sulphuric acid and
fibrous asbestos. The tipped match was
let into the bottle, and caught fire in its
contact with the acid. The revolution
in matchmaking, and the origin OF the
match manufacture, as a large and inn
portant industry, may be said to date
from the introduction of phosphorus as
an ingniting agent applied in various
ways.