The Opelousas courier., 1891-10-03
MATCH MANUFACTURING.
THE SIMPLE INVENTION WHICH
BANIsHED THE timber.

SAAN r.
Every man, woman and child in Eu-
rope and America, taking the average,
uses eight matches every day in the
year.
Does it not seem wonderful when one
considers the enormous number of matches
which, at that rate, the civilized world
uses each year to light its fires, its pipes
and cigars and other things which re-
quire igniting for purposes of everyday
convenience The very notion of getting
On without them seems so absurd that
one does not realize that it is only within
the last sixty years that they have been
procurable. How maryelously cheap they
are, tool 4 fact, there is no product of
human man. Wacture that better illustrates
the expense saving advantages of ma
chinery. When one machine will turn
out Is, 1000, 900 matches in ten hours,
why should not mankind regard the phe-
nomenon of fire as too commonplace to
be worthy of serious consideration.
Sweden is the great match maker of
the world, but the industry is conducted
on an 0 scale in the United States
and other countries. The wood used is
chiefly pine, white or yellow. Timber
for the purpose is cut out in blocks ff-
teen inches long-long enough to make
seven matches. After being freed from
the bark the blocks are put into a ma
chine resembling a turning lathe, with q
fixed cutting tool by which a continuous
strip of veneer is turned off precisely
the thickness of a match. While this is
being done small knives separate the
| sheet of veneer into seven bands so that
seven long ribbons are produced, the
width of each just the length of the
match that is to be.
Next these ribbons are fed more than
one hundred of them at a tiEt e into
another machine, though first they are
cut into six-foot lengths and the knotty
parts are removed. This latter contri-
vance chops them into match sticks at
the rate Of thousands a minute, which
are afterwards dried in heated drums
that reyolve. The sticks thus prepared
are then sifted to remove all splinters,
and the same apparatus that aecomplishes
this. purpose arranges them parallel SO as
to be conveniently bundled. Finally they
are dipped in combustible mixtures, and,
although this performance is so elabor-
ate as to render a detailed description
undesirable, it is performed with as
much quickness as the process which
went before. From the felled tree to the
finished lucifers all is done by machinery,
the boxing only being executed by
hapd.
Il was in 1905 that the notion of
chemical matches was first conceived. In
that year a French professor introduced
for the purpose asmall bottle of asbestos,
saturated with strong sulphuric acid,
into which little sticks of wood coated
with sulphur and tipped with a mixture
of chloraGe of potash and sugar, were to
be introduced when a light was wanted.
When the wooden splint thus prepared
was BROUGHT in contact with the acid in
the bottle ignition followed.
In the same year matches tipped with
Jumps of phosphorus seem to have been
known, but they caught fire too readily
by spontaneous combustion to render
them very desirable for household use.
An improvement was introduced in 1928,
when equal parts of sulphur and phos-
phorus we're melted together in a glass
tube, which was securely corSed. When
a light was desired a small stick was
poked into the tube and a particle of
mixture withdrawn on the end of it. On
exposure tt the air the substance caught
fire spontaneously.
The first really practicable friction
matches were made by an English apothe-
cary named Walker in 1927. He coated
splints of cardboard with sulphur and
tipped them with a mixture of sulphate
Of anthony, chlorate Of potash and gum.
Each box, holding e~ighty-four matches
and sold for twenty-five cents, contained
also q folded piece of glass paper. which
was to be pressed together while the
match was drawn through it. Three
years later another ingenious person
named Jones, in London, patented the
idea of making a small roll of paper,
soaked with chlorate of potash and SUGAR
at one end, with a thin glass globule
filed with strong sulphuric acid attached
at the same point. When the snlphuric
acid was Liberated BY pinching the
globnIe it acted upon tine chlorate oil pot
ash and sugar SO asto produce fire.
It was not until 1888 that the phor-
phorus friction match was first introduced
on q commercial scale, aud improve
ments rapidly followed, which have pro-
duced the fre-making article as it is sold
by the billions of boxes to-day. For a
long time the phosphorus, which has al
ways been the most important ingredient,
was found d periIous thing to deal with.
It occasioned multitudinous accidents,
and was also the cause of widespread
disease in the factories. This complaint
was Of a most dreadful character, caus-
ing decay Of the jawbones Of operatives ,
but it has been found that ventilation
and cleanliness do away with It. Owing
to the danger Of fires from the explosion
Of matches, the ssafety' variety has
grown much in favor Of late years, the
phosphorus necessary for ignifion being
combined with the mixture applied to
the surface of the box, instead Of forming
partof the tipping substance Of the
splints themselves.
Wax matches, so-called. are manufac.
tured chiefly in Italy and Great Britain.
They are made BY drawing strands of
fine cotton thread, twenty OF thirty at b
time, through melted stearine, with 4
small admixtnre of parafine. The wax
hardens quickly upon the threads and
the long tapers thus produced are