Evening star., 1917-09-23
THE STORY OF THE MATCH

u ZEN are not critical in their choice
ml of matches, yet there is a wide
Owe difference in the quality of these
things even though the retail price
appears to be a cent a box for all
kinds. whether they are excellent.
good, poor. bad or the worst. To
the man and smoker box of
matches is a box of matches. Not
one purchaser in hundred, or
perhaps in a thousand, regards the
label on a match box or makes the ef-
fort to acquaint himself with the brand
Of match which gives him satisfaction.
or with which he cannot light his pipe
excepting after many trials. One rea-
son, perhaps, for this condition Is that
so many of the matchbox labels are
in a foreign language. A man in most
cases will continue to buy the same
brand of matches which breaS~before
they light, ignite only after tearing the
paper off the box. or in so many thou
sands of cases will not light at all, or
after lighting will expire before COM
municating the fame to the pipe, cigar
or cigarette.
The word match" is quite old. hav-
ing for centuries been applied to any
thing having the quality of carrying
fire. but the match as the world knows
IL To-Day Is TeldllVely q ne" GeVlcS- Inc
first main. step toward the making of
the present type of match was in 1905.
when Henri Chancel, chief assistant to
Tenard. the great French chemist. in
vented an apparatus consisting of a
small bottle of asbestos and strong sui
phuric acid. with accompanying wood
splints which were coated with sui
phur and tipped with mixture of
chloride of potash and sugar The
match. on being brought in contact
with the sulphuric acid in the bottle.
burst into fame. About twenty years
later an obscure druggist, John Walker
by name, living in Stockton Tees,
Durham, England. introduced the first
match to be lighted by friction. 1t was
given the name of the "Congreve" or
sometimes the "Congreve match the
name being taken after Sir William
Congreve, inventor of the Congreve
rocket. a military device which Ameri-
cans first saw during the course Of the
battle of Bladensburg.
These Walker-ConHreve matches con-
sisted of wooden splints on cardboard
coated with sulphur and tipped with a
mixture of sulphide and antimony
chlorate Of potash and gum. With each
box of these matches came a piece of
glass paper folded so that holding it in
one hand and drawing the match with
the other through the folded paper the
friction set OF the combustible. The
price of those matches was rs cents a
box, and the purchasing power of rs
cents was then no doubt about four
times greater than it is now, so that
relatively those old fashioned matches
then SO new-fangled. was about 81 a
box.
Closely following the inventions in
dicated came those by a Vienna chem
fst. whose name was J. Drescher. and
q chemist Of Darmstadt whose name
as preserved was Frederick Modem
hauer. The match which those men
brought into the world was known as
the phosphorus friction match. The
use of those matches. because of the
presence of white phosphorus. was at
tended with considerable danger. Many
cases of murder and suicide by phos-
phorous poisoning were recorded. It
was about 1850 that the safe and SIM
pie match tipped with red or amorphus
phosphorus came into use.
The ignition of phosphorus by the
heat Of friction has been known since
the seventeenth century. when small