The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1883-01-19
TIE HISTORY OF MATCHES.
ONE HALF A CENTURY etNoE THE DAYS or
FLINT AND sTEEL-TeE LUcI-
FER IN POLITICS.

Nothing, perhaps, could give more vivid
idea, of the rapidlty with which the world
has advanced in all matters of comfort and
convenience than the announces ment in the
WORLD q few DAYS ago of the death OF Geo.
W Burgess, OF NOrristown. Pa, the first
American manufactures of friction matches.
He began the business in New York city in
1881, or thereabouts, but failed. The match-
es, we are told, were ''made of ehlOtate of
potash, aud bad to be drawn through two
pieces of sandpaper to be ignited. The
quantity OF chiOraUe of potash in this coun-
try beng SMALL Burgess imported a large
quantity, bat it proved TO be an inferior ar
ticle the matches We're returned upon his
hands, aad he failed" ME d. K Jones'
who died az ChiiHcOthe in 1850 was another
OF the inventors OF the modern match, and
the people of Vienna have Just been eelebra-
ting the semi-centenniaI OF three other claim
ants OF the honor la reality the idea of the
eommOn match Is almost as Old as the dis
cOvery OF phosphorus. Phosphorus was dis
covered in 1863, and in 1899 Godfrey Hank
WItZ introduced the practice OF rubbing it
between two folds of brown paper till it
took hre, when 1t was made 10 ignite a stick
one end OF which had
BEEN DIPPED IN SULPHUR.
Another form extensively used, we read,
was called chemical matches which were
sold in little cases at first as high as I5 shil-
lings box. They were little sticks of wood
dipped first IN sulphur and then in compo-
sltlon OF chiorate of potash, ,.howers of sui
phur, coiophODy, gum or sugar and einnabar
for colOrng. Accompanying them in the box
was vial containing sulphuric acid. into
which the match being dipped il was ignited
by chemical action induced between the
acid ana the chiOrate OF potash. The other
ingredients were added merely on account Of
their cOmbustible qualities -
1t IS not surprising that, with matches of
price, the Hint and steel and tinderbox re-
NAMED IN vogue with the great mass of peo-
pie. With the flint and steel was used a
long match--a splinter of wood some seven
Inches IN length, tipped with sulphur sYou
strike on the flint, writes an old Enolishmau
until shower Of sparks fell into one tin
deri some caught; then you put the point
OF the match TO the spark and blew until the
brimstone caught ana you were nearly suffo-
Gated, The tindeT-b box was generally too
dirty for general use, and therefore Ismps
were burned ID bedrooms, and candles en-
cased IN large tin cylinders full of round
holes, the whole being stood IN a basin with
a little water IN the bottom" 1t was about
1879 thaJ the Egyptian came in vogue in
England. The elaborate apparatus cOnsis-
tea oil an open bottle containing sulphurfc
acld, soaked in fbrous asbestos aud the
matches, which were about two inches long
and sold at one shilling a box, were tipped
with chemical combination, of which chic
rate OF potash was the principle ingredient.
On putting the match into the bottle and ran
idly Withdrawing it flame was produced
but as the acid was iDcOnyenieut and the
matches liable to be spoiled by damp, the
Eupytion soon went out Of favor, giving
place 70 the pyrOphorus the pneumatic tim
der OoN, and DOOereimtr's BY drogen lamp.
According TO She encyclopedias