S. AMERICA.
“MACHEROS” FLINT & STEEL.
Doubtless, The Spaniards carried with them all through their Conquests of S. AMERICA their “MACHEROS” which is a tube to carry the match. To the tube is generally attached a chain leading to a hook which the top pulls out with the match for the purpose of lighting with the flint & steel. Some 50 years ago the Peruvian & Chilian Ladies worked very beautiful match with Lace let in. Some MACHEROS were of Gold, some of Silver. In India they are larger and are called “RAMASWAMI.”
THE ANTEPENULTIMATE
of IGNITION.
The Flint & Tinder Pistol combination was a very great advance when first introduced, striking a light in the dark with a Flint & steel is not easy & all who have tried will say so, then the old Brimstone flat matches were odorous, next we had French “Amadou” & a match like a walking stick topped with Brimstone explosive matter, then smaller ones followed by “TANDSTIKERS” & now hand in hand “VESUVIANS” of the delightful Wax “VESTAS.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Very few edits were made to this book with the exception of trying to remove what seemed to be editing dots vs. actual periods, fullstops, commas and em-dashes, and adding quotation marks now and then to balance them. Ellipses are two .. in this text. The remaining changes are listed below.
Page 32, repeated word “of” removed from text. Original read (cruel scenes of of useless)
Page 64, “mixturr” changed to “mixture” (this case a mixture)
Page 90, “he” changed to “the” (years ago to the)