MATABELE 



3694 



MATCHES 



which terminated in irregular nipple-shaped 

 projections. 



MATABELE, matabe'le, meaning hidden 

 people, is the name applied to a Kafir tribe 

 who were once accustomed to appear in battle 

 hidden by large oxhide shields. They are of 

 Zulu stock, and their home is in Matabeleland, 

 which now belongs to the British colony of 

 Rhodesia in South Africa. It lies between the 

 Limpopo and Zambezi rivers, and is north of 

 the Transvaal. When the Boers drove the 

 Matabeles out of the Transvaal in 1837, Mosili- 

 katze, their chief, gathered a military host 

 collected from every tribe which he had con- 

 quered during his ten-years' sway in the Trans- 

 vaal, crossed the Limpopo and established a 

 military tyranny in the new territory. Since 

 the conquest of Matabeleland by the British in 

 1893, the Matabeles have abandoned their 

 practice of constant warfare for the peaceful 

 life of the farmer and herdsman. 



MATAN'ZAS, the capital of the province of 

 Matanzas, Cuba, next in importance to Havana 

 as a railroad and commercial center. Its export 

 of sugar alone averages $15,000,000 annually. 

 It is situated on Matanzas Bay, one of the 

 largest and best of Cuba's harbors, about fifty- 

 two miles east of Havana, with which it is 

 connected by rail. The cave of Bellamar, 

 noted for its great stalactites, and the cave of 

 Yumuri Valley, in the vicinity, attract many 

 visitors. The city was fired upon, but without 

 damage, by the American fleet during the 

 Spanish-American War. Population, 1910, 

 64,385. See STALACTITE AND STALAGMITE. 



MATCHES. Scientists state that when 

 primitive man learned how to produce fire he 

 made the first practical invention, and that this 

 discovery marked his emergence from the low- 

 est state of savagery. Looking down the cen- 

 turies of human history we see at one end of 

 the inventive chain two pieces of dry wood 

 that the savage rubbed together to produce 

 the precious flame; at the other end is the 

 modern match, an object in such common use 

 it seems always to have been with us. Many 

 ages elapsed, however, before the familiar 

 splint of wood, tipped with an inflammable 

 head, was devised. From rubbing bits of wood 

 together man passed to the production of fire 

 by means of a piece of flint, a steel and a bit 

 of cloth for tinder, and then progressed by 

 slow degrees to less cumbersome methods. 



It was not until the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century that any device similar to a 

 match in the modem sense came into general 



use. For domestic and other purposes it was 

 customary to obtain fire by means of a flint 

 and steel, a tinder-box and splints of wood 

 tipped with sulphur. The tinder consisted of 

 fragments of carbonized linen and cotton, 

 treated to a high temperature in a closed ves- 

 sel. The sparks produced by striking the steel 

 on the flint fell into the tinder, set the mass in 

 a glow, and developed enough heat to set fire 

 to the sulphur tips of the splints. These splints 

 were known as "brimstone matches" and 

 "spunks." In the year 1805 a French scientist 

 devised an apparatus consisting of a small 

 bottle containing asbestos saturated with sul- 

 phuric acid, together with splints coated with 

 sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sugar and 

 chlorate of potash. Fire was produced by 

 chemical action; the match heads ignited when 

 brought in contact with the substance in the 

 bottle. 



Friction Matches. The device described 

 above, known as the instantaneous light box, 

 was both dangerous and inconvenient, and was 

 superseded by the friction match, said to be 

 the invention of John Walker, an English 

 druggist. The friction match was introduced 

 in the year 1827, and its invention marks the 

 beginning of the modern industry. Walker's 

 match consisted of a wooden splint or stick of 

 cardboard coated with sulphur and tipped with 

 a mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphide of 

 antimony and powdered gum. The match was 

 ignited by being drawn through a piece of bent 

 sandpaper. 



The next important step in the development 

 of the match was the invention of the phos- 

 phorus friction match, which was brought into 

 general commercial use in 1833. The first of 

 this type made in the United States were 

 manufactured at Springfield, Mass., in 1836. 

 They were of the "strike anywhere variety," 

 and the inflammable head consisted of white 

 or yellow phosphorus, together with sulphur 

 and other substances that yield oxygen readily 

 in the presence of heat, such as chlorate of 

 potash, red lead, nitrate of lead and peroxide 

 of manganese. White or yellow phosphorus is 

 a deadly poison, which is liable to infect 

 operatives who handle it with a distressing 

 disease called "phossy jaw." The terrible suf- 

 fering endured by workmen in match factories 

 led to an international movement for their 

 protection, and the use of white or yellow phos- 

 phorus is now forbidden by law in practically 

 every country engaged in the manufacture of 

 matches. The substance now most widely em- 



