The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1886-02-13
Match Mating, and March Usiag.

ii is an oil proycrb, that "matches
are made in heaven" but the matches
TO which we refer are made in these
lower regions, an in fact were not dis
covered until 1888. Prior to that time,
the Hin, ard steel, AMI tinler box, and
the sulphurel sticl, with the vial filled
with phosphorus, into which to plunge
the stick, ana SO SET up light, were in
vogue. People uscl to keep a fire all
day. orr burning light, if they dared
not depend upon the slow and uncertain
process Of the tinder-box. For a good
many years after the "lucifer' was
invented, matches were dangerous from
their inGammabiliiy, and poisonous by
their gases, both TO consumers and
makers. 1t was not until 1915 that
German eXperimenter despoiled phos-
phorus Of many of its dangerous char
acteriStics, and prepared the way for
the safety matches of these days. All
this has been accomplished within the
memory Of men and women now living
and active. The cycle is hardly more
than tlfty years. Still there are those
who cling to the old tinder-box, or its
modern improved form. 1t has its uses
in remote neighborhoods, in camp life,
in the woods, and on the frontier. In
the open air. particularly If il is windy,
match is often a delusion, where the
flint and steel and finder are success.
1t is calculated that the average, number
Of matches used per day, is ten to each
Of the po?ulation-saY five hundred and
fifty million or five million five hundred
thousand boxes of one hundred each
One can utilize a light from a match in
fifteen seconds. The tinder-box often
required two minutes, to say nothing of
the veXa.ion of spirit. Now, at ten
lights day, which require one hundred
and fifty seconds, or two and a half
minutes fn one cnse,anl twenty minutes
in the other, there Is n saving of seven
teen and hall minutes a day. The
match user consumes in his work nine
hundred and thirteen minutes n year,
or fifteen hours. The tinder-box user
would consume seven thousand three
hundred minutes, or one hundred and
twenty hours,a difference of one hundred
and five hours, or ten good working
days. At valuation of one dollar
day, this would be five hundred
and fifty million dollars a year saved to
the production of the United States.
Sir Lyon Playfair, in his address at the
last meeting Of the British Association,
estimated the saving of time in Great
Britain by the use of matches, as equal
to twenty-siX million pounds, placing
labor. at thirty cents a day. So we are
not far out of the way in our calcula-
tions. If it is said that in this estimate
we take the aggregate population, and
so are misleading, it may be replied that
the estimated consumption of matches
is ten per day to the whole population;
TO half the population the average would |
be twenty per day, and so on. The
result would the same. The fact re-
mains, that by the use of this trihng |
and unconsldered household and pocket |
companion, the people of the United |
States save in time, a sum many fold !
greater than the cost of the matches.
This is familiar truth, paralleled in
the production and use Of many other
II is none the less a stupendous
p, DEWEY inAn, Agri- |
culfuTiSf