LUCIFER-MATCHES. 605 



At present manual labour has been replaced by machinery 

 constructed on the principle of Romer's plane. The threads 

 are then woven with stout twine into blinds, floor-coverings, 

 table-covers, etc., and in tropical countries are specially 

 useful for chicks, which, hanging before doors and windows, 

 allow sufficient ventilation, while excluding the glare of sun- 

 light and insects. 



The short pieces used for lucifer-matches are made from 

 the most various woods, especially those of spruce, Scots pine, 

 silver-fir and aspen. They are prepared in factories according 

 to three different methods. The oldest method, and that still 

 most usual in Germany, is by means of Rorner's plane, which 

 in this case is perforated by twenty-five to thirty little cutting 

 tubes, one above the other, through which the wood is forced 

 by the workmen. The serviceable pieces are separated by 

 machinery from the unserviceable pieces, and placed 500 

 together in boxes, which are fastened by rings into large 

 bundles containing several thousand pieces ; a workman can 

 prepare 200,000 pieces in a day. 



Another method is employed in Sweden, only aspen-wood 

 being thus used. The round piece of rough wood, 1 j feet long, 

 is softened in water and fixed between the points of a lathe, 

 and the wood is then turned against a blade which peels-off 

 from it a long piece 1 J feet broad, of the thickness of a match. 

 This is then cut and split by machines into separate pieces, 

 each the size of a match. The Jonkoping factories alone used 

 up, in 1883, 280,000 cubic feet of Eussian aspen-wood for this 

 purpose. 



Pieces with a quadrilateral section are prepared after a third 

 method, machines similar to those in use for wood-wool being 

 employed. 



The manufacture of lucifer-matches is steadily consuming 

 more and more wood ; there are factories, which for 

 matches and match-boxes, consume 200,000 to 300,000 

 stacked cubic feet of wood annually. Thirty-five stacked 

 cubic feet of wood will yield 2,000,000 lucifer matches 

 2 inches long, weighing 3| cwt. The yearly requirements 

 of Europe in this respect are estimated at more than 

 14,000,000 cubic feet of wood. 



