THE METHODS OF FIRE-MAKING. '405 



more expeditious than the tinder-box, and the improvements soon made 

 the invention all that could be desired in point of effectiveness. It is. 

 however, worthy of inquiry whether the alarming deterioration of the 

 teeth of the present generation may not be due to phosphorous matches 

 more than to soft food. 



Attempts to supersede the clumsy briquets produced the tinder pis- 

 tol, the tinder wheel, and, later, the first chemical match. Dussauce 

 says: "When for the first time a match could be inflamed by (lipping 

 it into a bottle full of phosphorous mastic mixed with oxide of phos- 

 phorus, the results were fine, but were far from those now obtained. 

 This primitive invention is due to Cagniard de la Tour, and is the 

 foundation of the actual industry of matches inflammable by friction."* 



This invention is interesting as marking the first employment of 

 phosphorus in the problem of easy fire-producing. The next iuventiou 

 was called the " Instantaneous light-box," or " Eupyrion," also called 

 u dip splint," said to have been invented in Vienna in 1809. The only 

 United States patent of this device was in 1814, called "match-light 

 box." It consisted of a tin box, or wooden receptacle, containing a 

 glass bottle filled with asbestos soaked with sulphuric acid, and wood 

 splints tipped first with sulphur and then dipped into a paste made of 

 chlorate of potash 6 parts, powdered sugar 2 parts, and gum Arabic 1 

 part, the mass mixed with water and colored with some material. The 

 splints were lighted by dipping them into the acid. Victor Hugo de- 

 scribes the outfit under the name of " Fumade's fire producer," in Les 

 Miserables, where Gavaroche, after several trials, succeeds in eliciting 

 a "sputtering light" in his lodging in the interior of the Elephant, a 

 statue in Paris. Hugo's plot was laid in 1832, but the invention was 

 made public in 1825 or 1826. Owing to great cost in the first instance 

 and to the subsequent loss of value by the decline of strength in the 

 acid, as well as to the hygroscopic nature of the composition on the 

 splints, it had a limited popularity, t 



Another fire-producer on this order was the "Prometheans," tubes of 

 glass filled with sulphuric acid surrounded with an inflammable mixture 

 made chiefly of alum and sugar. On being broken they gave an in- 

 stantaneous light. Another promethean was composed of equal parts 

 of chlorate of potash and sugar mixed with a solution of gum. The 

 sulphuric acid was ingeniously contained in a small glass bead, im- 

 bedded in the paste and rolled up in gummed paper. After the bead 

 was crushed with a pair of pliers the acid came in contact with the 

 chlorate and flame resulted.! 



Still another invention of this period was the German "Dobereiuer," 

 named for the inventor, a chemical apparatus also known as the hydro- 

 gen lamp. A light was obtained by allowing a jet of hydrogen gas to 



* H. Dussauce: Fabrication of Matches. Phila., 1864, p. 73. 

 tSee also ''Little Dorritt," by Dickens, II, p. 271. 

 $ Brande's Encyclopaedia, p. 997. 



