The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-10
WAYS OF GETTING A LIGHT.
THE AGENT Is FRICTION NOW, As
1T WAS IN THE BEGINNING.

luton of the Match.
From the Boston Herald.
The announcement that Sir Isaac Hol-
den, NJ. p, who died recently in London.
was the inventor of the lucifer match may
be correct, but there is strong evidence
to the contrary. Phosphorus friction
matches were made in Paris as long as
1916. and in 1927 they were manufactured
in considerable quantities in England
They were introduced on a commercial
scale i'm England sixty~three or sixty-four
years ago, and appear, to have been
brought out almost simultaneously in sew
eral other cities in Europe. The name
most prominently connected with the early
stages of the invention is Preschel of vi
emma, who, In 1888, had factory In op-
Grafton. making, beside PHOSPHORUS
matches, fusee5 ana amadou Tor German
tinder) slips tipped with an ignitlng com
pound. AT the same time also matches
were being made by Moldenhauer in
Darmstadt.
There is good authority for the belief
that the friction match was the product
of the ingenuity of John Frederick Komer-
er, who. early in the century, was i'm
prsoned in the penitentiary at Hohenas-
perg, In Germany. He began manufac-
turing after he was released from prison,
but was ruined by Viennese competition
and died a pauper Up to 1862 the manu-
facturers of Austria and South Germany
controlled the match business of the en-
tire world.
The primitive method of kindling fire
was no doubt, the use of friction. Two
pieces of wood were rubbed together until
the dust evolved by the operation iEnited
by the heat produced. This mode was still
in vogue few years ago on some of the
smaller islands of the Pacific, which had
not enjoyed the advantages of sufficient
commerce with Europe or America to keep
them supplied with more modern contriv-
ances. The usual way of performing this
operation is to press the sharpened end of
a stick of hard wood against a piece of
soft wood, notched to receive the point,
and twirl it rapidly back and forth between
the palms of the hands. The small paru-
cles rubbed off are kindled after a while.
and a little dry moss Is added to increase
the flame, until it is large enough to COM
municate to twigs and splinters. While
this method answers well with the unciv-
lized people who employ 1t, it requires
wrecked mariners and ''matchless' travel
lers have found TO their sorrow.
In Terra del Fuego, at the extremity of
South America, early travellers found the
natives producing fire by rubbing brskly
a piece of pyrites upon a dry, messy sub
stance, which was quickly inhamed. This
approached nearly to the flint and steel
long used by civilized nations,
Up to the end of the first quarter of the
present century the flint and steel were
almost the only instrument of getting
light in the civilized world Various forms
of apparatus was used, but all employed
these two substances to give out the spark.
Minute fragments of steel were thrown off
by striking 1t against the flint, and these
particles, rendered intensely hot by the
friction, were caught on finder. finder was
made by partially burning linen or cotton
rags until nothing remained of them but
carbon In a very attenuated state. 1t is
very susceptible of ignition, but it does not
fame up and will not Immediately com
municate fire to paper or wood, because
the combustible parts of these substances
are combined with others that retard ,rath-
er than aid, combustion, and therefore re-
quire a certain time to separate before ig-
milton is possible Another and more in
fiammable substance. therefore. was ne
cessary to take fire from the finder and
this was found in sulphur The pointed
ends of thin slips of highly resinous or
very dry pine wood were dipped in melted
sulphur and, thus prepared, instantly ig-
nited when applied to the incandescent tin
der. These bits of prepared wood We're the
first birthstone Matches" They were ex-
ceedingly malodorous and to avoid their
use match paper" or touch paper" a
thick paper impregnated with saltpetre. or
amadou, a felt-like substance, prepared
from the fungus PoIynorus fomentarius,
were sometimes substituted for finder as
the recipient of the spark from flint and
steel, and would communicate fire without
the Intervention of the sulphur match.
Blacksmiths occasionally ignored flint
and steel in lighting their forge fires, by
striking soft iron wire smart blows with
a hammer, making 1t red hot in a few sec
onds, and thrusting 1t into little heap of
powdered birthstone and sawdust, which II
Immediately kindied.
Early in the century an ingenious
Frenchman utilized the well-known fact
that the rapid compression OF air creates
intense heat, in a light-strlking apparatus
made like a popgun closed at the end.
Placing amadou in the closed end and fore
ing the piston down with great force. suffi-
cient heat was generated to kindle the
finder, and a light could be procured from
it with birthstone match This appa-
ratus was uncertain and easily put out of
order, and never came into common use
PHOSPHORUS, discovered by Brandt In
1868, was first applied commercially as q
means of obtaining fire by Godfrey Hauk-
witz of London, who In 1880, under the d.
rection OF Robert Boyle, prepared and sold
considerable quantities. Small particles
were rubbed between folds of brown pa
per, and sulphur matches we're ignited
from the resulting flame. But as phos-
phorus as then prepared was both costly
and dangerous the invention was not long
employed.
1t was not until 1906 that attempts were
made to use chemical agency for the pro-
duction of fire. In that year NJ. Chanul
assistant to Prof. Thenard of Paris dis
covered that mixture of chlorate of pot
ash and sugar would ignite IL dipped into
sulphuric acid
In 1923 a phosphorus match was propos-
ed. In this case equal parts of phospho-
rus and sulphur were cautiously mingled
in a glass tube or vial, which was kent
securely corked. When a light was want
ed, a small pellet of the mixture was taken