MATCHES. 413 



doubt, thei-efore, they commit themselves to the Atlantic in the belief 

 that it is as passable as those lakes and Ijoixls which they have already 

 successfully dared, and that beyond its waves lies a land which they 

 are never destined to reach. 



The submerged continent of Lemuria, in what is now the Indian 

 Ocean, is considered to afibrd an explanation of many difficulties in 

 the distribution of organic life, and I think the existence of a Miocene 

 Atlantis will be found to have a strong elucidative bearing on subjects 

 of greater interest than the migration of the lemming. At all events, 

 if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the North 

 Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently 

 suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we 

 call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheri- 

 tance of previously-acquired experience. Popular Science Review. 



-^- 



MATCHES. 



By JOHN A. GARVER, A.B. 



AN article in The Popular Science Monthly of last November 

 gave an interesting account of the early history of fire, showing 

 how that important element was obtained in primitive times. We will 

 now consider the development of the modern art of extemporizing 

 fire. In a match-making age those crude and ancient processes are 

 regarded with curiosity, but that they ever possessed any practical 

 value is scarcely realized ; while the use of our prompt and cheap 

 devices for producing combustion has grown to be such a matter of 

 course that a thought is hardly given to the time when they did not 

 exist. During the whole of the last century, however, and in the early 

 part of the present century, the invention of a safe and trustworthy 

 agent for furnishing fire was regarded as one of the great wants of 

 the age ; and fifty years ago a tinder-box was as much an indispen- 

 sable article of household economy as is the well-filled match-safe to- 

 day. The sulphur-match now in use is not so old as our railroads, and 

 but a few years ago there occurred frequent examples of burns caused 

 by the explosion of the match and the projection of its burning pieces. 



Among the more civilized nations, the tinder-box, with the flint 

 and steel, became known in the fourteenth century, and continued to 

 be used, notwithstanding the other methods, down to the invention 

 of the lucifer-match. The tinder was formed by the partial combus- 

 tion of a linen or cotton rag, and, being ignited by striking a spark 

 upon it from the flint and steel, communicated its fire in turn to the 

 match. 



When phosphorus was first discovered, two hundred years ago, it 



