LIGHT PRODUCED BY FRICTION UNDER WATER.
If you should rub two squares of cut-loaf sugar together in a dark room, light would result from the friction; but the effect is produced in a much greater degree by two pieces of silex or quartz; and if two pieces of a fine quality of quartz be forcibly rubbed together, you may distinguish the time of night by a watch; but what is more surprising, the same effect is produced equally strong on rubbing the pieces together under water.
In olden times, before matches were invented, fire for all purposes was produced by means of friction; a piece of flint and one of steel being the substances used, and a tin box of charred linen rags, called tinder, received the sparks which fell from the steel.
Many years ago, when your great-grandmothers were children, in many New England communities a cow’s horn, sawed across the top, and fitted with a wooden stopper, was used to hold the tinder, but later, the more stylish and luxurious tinder-box took its place. This box, made of tin, and somewhat larger and deeper than a good-sized blacking-box of to-day was fitted with an inside cover, a simple disk of tin with a ring of wire in the top for a handle, and was filled with a quantity of cotton or linen rags, which were set on fire with a brand from the hearth. When this burning cloth had reached a black color, but before it was reduced to ashes, the inside cover was let down upon it, and the flames were extinguished. After this, another outside cover was put on the box to prevent dampness penetrating, and thus rendering the tinder worthless. To insure further protection against the intruding damp, the box, with its companions of flint and steel, were generally kept in the chimney closet beside the fire-place.
In those primitive days of our country, it was a very common thing for a farmer’s wife to run into a neighbor’s and borrow some one of these necessary articles, and it was usually the tinder, which she had neglected to prepare when fire was plenty, that was the thing needed. Occasionally, when two or three houses were near together and the inmates on friendly terms with each other, one set would answer the demands of the neighborhood, and would be used by all with equal freeness. Later on, each family made their own matches, by simply dipping bits of wood into melted sulphur, and allowing it to dry on the end. These matches were kept in another tin box, and when the spark had ignited the tinder, the sulphur end was touched to the smoldering fire, and would immediately burst into flame.
Before these matches were invented, however, when the housewife wished to make her fire (stoves were of course unknown), she would seat herself near the fire-place, and, grasping the uncovered horn or box between her knees, would hold her steel in her left hand just above it, and with the flint or quartz in her right, would strike upon the former, till two or three sparks fell upon the charred surface; the bit of glowing tinder would then be carefully taken from the box, wrapped around with a bit of rag, and blown upon with her breath until the cloth burst into flames. A candle was quickly lighted from this, to keep the flame till the fire was well under way.
Every boy has probably felt the inconvenience of being without matches, when a fire on the beach in summer, or near the skating-pond in winter, would have been such a luxury. The next time the emergency occurs, strike a piece of quartz or hard white stone upon the large blade of your jackknife, over any bit of dry cotton or thin paper you may have at hand, as a tinder-box would probably not form part even of the very miscellaneous collection of the average school-boy’s pockets.
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