20 
dipped, very rapidly otherwise the match was extinguished as it 
was drawn from the bottle. In the same year 1805, some sort of 
phosphorus match appears to have been tried in Paris, and in 
1809, Derepas proposed to mix magnesia with the phosphorus to 
render it less dangerous. Derosne is also said to have made a 
friction match with a phosphorus tip in 1816. Again in 1823, 
another attempt was made to use phosphorus. A bottle of 
phesphorus and sulphur which had been melted together and 
very securely corked was supplied, and on inserting a bit of wood 
and fishing out a small pellet, this became almost instantly 
ignited, but it was thought very lucky if this was done many 
times without exploding the whole bottle. In 1828, also 
Dobereiner, brought out his beautiful lamp, producing hydrogen 
gas which ignited itself by rendering a piece of spongy platinum 
red hot. This is still the delight of Chemical Exhibitions, but 
never came into general use. ‘The year 1827 saw the first really 
practical match, when John Walker, of Stockton-on-Tees, 
brought out his ‘‘ Congreves,” (named from the Congreve 
rocket), a stick of wood or card coated with sulphur and 
tipped with a mixture of sulphate of antimony and chlorate 
of potash and gum. These matches were sold at 84 for a 
shilling and ignited by being drawn through a folded piece of 
glass paper—if the head was not pulled off in the operation, 
which happened with at least half the matches. In 1830, 
Prometheans were produced. These were short rolls of paper 
tipped with chlorate of potash and sugar, and having attached 
to them a small glass globule containing sulphuric acid, and on 
breaking this with a pincers the acid ignited with the potash. 
the year 1833 saw the appearance of the phosphorus match 
of the present day, manufactured in several countries 
almost simultaneously, (specially at Vienna, under Preschel’s 
plan and by Moldenhauer, at Darmstadt). The ordinary match 
composition consists of phosphorus and lead with bichromate 
(or chlorate) of potash and per-oxide of magnesium, the match 
being previously dipped in sulphur or petroleum. In 1845, 
Schroétter, of Vienna, discovered the innocuous red phosphorus, 
and in 1855 Bryant and May’s safety match appeared on a plan 
similar to Lanstrom’s, viz :—a match tipped with chlorate of 
potash, which ignites only on a box coated with red phosphorus. 
Before this Vestas had been produced, in which the body of the 
match is formed of 20 or 30 strands of cotton passed through 
stearine or paraffin and tipped with the ordinary composition. 
Fusees for smokers, formerly made of thick paper saturated with 
saltpetre and bichromate of potash tipped with ordinary com- 
position, are now supplanted by Vesuvians with large oval heads 
of a porous mixture of charcoal, saltpetre and scented bark, glass 
and gum, and the ordinary composition. 
