THE EXHIBITION OF 1862. 
69 
leather. One of the largest firms for the preparation of this 
element, Messrs. Albright and Wilson, of Oldbury, exhibit a 
most interesting case illustrating this manufacture, the beautiful 
semi-transparent, wax-like appearance and the large blocks in 
which it is produced are very accurately illustrated (phosphorus 
itself being inadmissible in the building) . 
The great consumption of phosphorus is of course in the 
manufacture of lucifer matches ; in this, two difficulties have to 
be contended with, phosphorus being the most inflammable 
body known, and also one of the most poisonous. Numerous 
had been the attempts to overcome these difficulties in the 
manufacture of this useful though humble commodity, but the 
liability to explosion, and the terrible disease to which the 
workmen who inhale the phosphuretted vapours are subject, 
seemed scarcely capable of being obviated, when Professor 
Schrotter, by one of the most remarkable discoveries in 
modern chemistry, effected an entire revolution in the manu- 
facture. He discovered that when common phosphorus -was 
heated for some time in a close vessel to a temperature of 
470° F., it underwent a complete alteration in the whole of its 
physical characters. From a white, waxy, crystalline body, 
soft and flexible as lead, it became a deep red, amorphous, 
opaque mass, hard and brittle as glass. The white phosphorus 
quickly ignites by mere exposure to the air; the red phosphorus 
will not ignite spontaneously, and may be packed up in boxes, 
in the dry state, without any danger. The white phosphorus 
is as poisonous as arsenic, and has a strong garlicky smell, 
whilst the red is without odour, and has no poisonous pro- 
perties. The former is luminous in the dark, and melts at 
108° F., whilst the latter is perfectly illuminous, and requires a 
temperature above 500° F. to melt it. Lastly, the white is 
freely soluble in various liquids, whilst scarcely any known sol- 
vent will touch the red modification. In spite of these striking 
differences, the red phosphorus answers quite as well- for match 
making as the common sort, and as the transformation may be 
effected with very little trouble, there is no doubt that the 
harmless variety will, in course of time, entirely supersede the 
dangerous variety. 
Considering the frightful disease which attacks and destroys 
the jawbones of the workpeople employed in making common 
matches, and at the same time their highly poisonous pro- 
perties, we think it the duty of every person to encourage to 
the utmost the manufacture of matches made from red or allo- 
tropic phosphorus. Of these, two varieties are at present before 
the public. One kind is exactly like the ordinary match in which 
the oxidizing material and the red phosphorus are mixed to- 
gether, and put on the tips of the splints, differing there- 
