ONLY A MATCH. 6? 5 



devising the best provisions practicable for the safety of the 

 workmen. 



A curious coincidence occurred in 1845, when the attention of 

 Lorinser in Vienna was first directed to phosphorus poisoning, 

 and Romer, of the same city, discovered the amorphous or red 

 form of phosphorus and the method of converting white phos- 

 phorus into it. This form of the element, taking fire at 250 C, 

 is not poisonous. Romer and Preschel were engaged in experi- 

 ments to find whether the new form of phosphorus might not be 

 used in matches instead of white phosphorus. They found that a 

 mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphuret of antimony, and amor- 

 phous phosphorus would take fire readily through friction on a 

 rough body, but the same result followed which Kammerer had 

 experienced with his first mixture. The mass exploded with a 

 violence that sent burning bits of the stuff hissing all over the 

 room. About 1850 the German chemist Bottger introduced a 

 novelty which marked the beginning of a new era in the match 

 manufacture. He made the substance of the head of the match 

 of a mixture of chlorate of potash and sulphuret of antimony, 

 using gum to bind them, and prepared a special friction surface 

 consisting of a coating that contained amorphous phosphorus. 

 When the head of the match was drawn over this substance bits 

 of the amorphous phosphorus were kindled here and there by 

 the friction, which ignited parts of the match-head, producing 

 the explosion of the whole mixture. 



The " Swedish safety matches " were made in many German 

 shops from Bottger's recipes about 1850, but they could not com- 

 pete with the phosphorus matches. People had become accus- 

 tomed to the last ; they were easily lighted, and if the sand- 

 paper was lost, fire could be got by drawing them on the wall or 

 the trousers ; while with the new matches one had always to 

 carry his rough card phosphorized with amorphous phosphorus, 

 without which his match was useless. The great value of the 

 German discovery, however, became known abroad about 1860, 

 when the Swedish engineer Lundstrom founded the famous fac- 

 tory in Jonkoping. The material of the match-head and the 

 friction surface remained as before, but the Swedes devised a 

 practicable method of boxing, putting the matches in the little 

 convenient slide-boxes, and the chief hindrance to the spread of 

 the invention was removed. The " Swedish matches," as they are 

 now generally called, do not light of themselves so easily as the 

 phosphorus matches, and are therefore safer ; and they are, fur- 

 ther, unpoisonous. It is therefore no wonder that the " Swedes " 

 have enjoyed a triumphal march through the world, have found 

 a home in Europe and America, and have even made their way 

 into dark Africa. During its most prosperous period, the Jon- 



