ON THE UTILIZATION OP WASTE. 407 



Phosphorus. — The earthy matter of bones consists of three equiva- 

 lents of lime united with one equivalent of phosphoric acid. It is what 

 chemists term " a tribasic phosphate of lime." Phosphoric acid, as you 

 are no doubt aware, consists of one equivalent of phosphorus united 

 with five equivalents of oxygen. In order to obtain the phosphorus, it 

 is only necessary to take away those five equivalents of oxygen, which 

 we can do by mixing the compound with charcoal after some prelimi- 

 nary operations, and heating them together. The charcoal takes away 

 the oxygen and forms carbolic oxide with it, whilst the phosphorus distils 

 over. In this way we get phosphorus in the condition in which you 

 are very familiar with it. Here it is in the state in which we obtain it, 

 by this distillation, after it has been again melted and filtered through 

 chamois leather, and cast into quill tubes. You see it is a wax-like 

 substance, which I must handle with care, because if I allow it to dry, 

 the heat of my fingers would be sufficient to inflame it. Now, observe 

 "what this substance looks like. It is semi-transparent ; it is soft ; you 

 can cut it like wax. It is exceedingly poisonous, and in the making of 

 lucifer-matches is found to be a very insidious poison. Lucifer-match 

 makers are apt at first to be subject to an affection which does not draw 

 much attention. They complain frequently of toothache, but they do 

 not know the insidious disease which is creeping upon them. I will 

 noc pain you by describing this disease in its progress, but will merely 

 say that the workmen who make lucifer-matches from this phosphorus 

 are subject to the most distressing of all diseases ; the jawbone be- 

 comes destroyed, and frequently disappears or becomes useless, and 

 some of them spend the greater part of their lives in the wards of 

 hospitals. 



It therefore became an important point for science to find some way 

 by which this phosphorus should be deprived of its poisonous proper- 

 ties without losing those chemical characters which make it so useful in 

 making matches for instantaneous light. Now, a gentleman who is at 

 present in London, as one of the Jurors of the Great Exhibition, met 

 this want of science in a very skilful way. Bodies are capable of assum- 

 ing two conditions, and sometimes more, which the chemist calls 

 " allotropic " conditions ; that is to say, they are, in fact, old friends 

 with new faces given to them by some artifice, but still the same body, 

 and not having gained or lost anything. Now, here is our old friend 

 phosphorus with certainly a new face. By taking common phosphorus 

 and exposing it for some time to a temperature of 460 cleg., this yellow 

 waxy, transparent substance transforms into a dark brick-like substance. 

 It is no longer so inflammable as to ignite spontaneously. I place it in 

 water because it will ignite upon the application of a light, and it is 

 best to keep it away from the possibility of those conditions under 

 which it might be accidently ignited. It may be packed up in boxes 

 without danger of spontaneous combustion ; but what is more import- 

 ant, it has lost all its poisonous properties. The phosphorus, which 



