MANUFACTUKE OF MATCHES. 



239 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 Manufacture of matches. 



THE manufacture of matches having- a head of smelted sulphur, sernichki, in Eussia 

 dates from the most ancient times. They were used in the kindling of the fires, 

 for which purpose the match was touched to a burning- coal taken from a heap of em- 

 bers which had been covered in the zagniotok, (a cavity of the oven); they were also used 

 when fire was struck by means of the steel, flint, and tinder. Owing- to the fact that 

 sulphur is easily ignitable, it was used for a long time in the making- of phosphorous 

 matches, their ends being- first covered with sulphur and then with phosphorus. There- 

 fore, matches are until now called screnki (made of sulphur) by the Russian peasants. 



The manufacture of phophorous matches had been established in Eussia already 

 before 1840, but its dimensions were for a long time very limited, partly because the 

 bulk of the Eussian people continued to use the flint and tinder for striking a light, 

 and partly because the manufacture, as well as the use of phosphorous matches, was 

 subject to very restraining regulations. Only since the demand for matches increased, 

 and especially since 1859, when a law was issued allowing their manufacture with- 

 out any special restraints to follow the regulations concerning the establishment of 

 factories and free trade with the products, did the production begin to grow. 



This increase, however, did not r^ate to the number of factories, which was 

 subject to many fluctuations, as much as to the dimensions of the output. Thus, for 

 the period from 1865 to 1887, the average number and the product of the match 

 factories in European Eussia, Poland excluded, were as follows: 



