The Story of a Tinder-box

by Charles Meymott Tidy

Fig. 3.

It was with this instrument, long before the invention of matches, that our grandfathers obtained light. I want to show you how the trick was managed. First of all it was necessary to have good tinder. To obtain this, they took a piece of linen and simply charred or burnt it, as you see I am doing now (Fig. 4). (Cambric, I am told, makes the best tinder for match-lighting, and the ladies, in the kindness of their hearts, formerly made a point of saving their old cambric handkerchiefs for this purpose.) The servants prepared the tinder over-night, for reasons I shall explain to you directly. Having made the tinder, they shut it down in the box with the lid (Fig. 3 A) to prevent contact with air. You see I have the tinder now safely secured in my tinder-box. Here is a piece of common flint, and here is the steel. Here too are the matches, and I am fortunate in having some of the old matches made many years ago, prepared as you see with a little sulphur upon their tips. Well, having got all these etceteras, box, tinder, flint and steel, we set to work in this way:—Taking the steel in one hand, and the flint in the other, I must give the steel a blow, or rather a succession of blows with the flint (Fig. 3 B). Notice what beautiful sparks I obtain! I want one of these sparks, if I can persuade it to do so, to fall on my tinder. There! it has done so, and my tinder has caught fire. I blow my fired tinder a little to make it burn better, and now I apply a sulphur match to the red-hot tinder. See, I have succeeded in getting my match in flame. I will now set light to one of these old-fashioned candles—a rushlight—with which our ancestors were satisfied before the days of gas and electric lighting. This was their light, and this was the way they lighted it. No wonder (perhaps you say) that they went to bed early.

Fig. 4.

I should like to draw your attention to one other form of tinder-box, because I do not suppose you have ever seen these kind of things before. I have here two specimens of the pistol form of tinder-box (Fig. 5). Here is the flint, the tinder being contained in this little box. It is the same sort of tinder as we made just now. The tinder was fired with flint and steel in the same way as the old-fashioned flint pistols fired the gunpowder. And you see this pistol tinder-box is so constructed as to serve as a candlestick as well as a tinder-box. I have fired, as you perceive, my charred linen with this curious tinder-box, and thus I get my sulphur match alight once more!

Fig. 5.

It was in the year 1669 that Brandt, an alchemist and a merchant—a very distinguished scientific man—discovered the remarkable substance I have here, which we call phosphorus. Brandt was an alchemist. I do not know whether you know what an alchemist is. An alchemist was an old-fashioned chemist. These alchemists had three prominent ideas before them. The first thing they sought for was to discover a something—a powder they thought it ought to be—that would change the commoner or baser metals (such as iron) into gold. The second idea was to discover "a universal solvent," that is, a liquid which would dissolve everything, and they hoped out of this liquid to be able to crystallize gems. And then, having obtained gold and gems, the third thing they desired was "a vital elixir" to prolong their lives indefinitely to enjoy the gold and gems they had manufactured. These were the modest aims of alchemy. Well now—although you may say such notions sound very foolish—let me tell you that great practical discoveries had their origin in the very out-of-the-way researches of the alchemists. Depend upon this, that an object of lofty pursuit, though that object be one of practically impossible attainment, is not unworthy the ambition of the scientific man. Though we cannot scale the summit of the volcanic cone, we may notwithstanding reach a point where we can examine the lava its fires have melted. We may do a great deal even in our attempt to grasp the impossible. It was so with Brandt. He was searching for a something that would change the baser metals into gold, and, in the search, he discovered phosphorus. The chief thing that struck Brandt about phosphorus was its property of shining in the dark without having previously been exposed to light. A great many substances were known to science even at that time that shone in the dark after they had been exposed to light. But it was not until Brandt, in the year 1669, discovered phosphorus that a substance luminous in the dark, without having been previously exposed to light, had been observed. I should like, in passing, to show you how beautifully these phosphorescent powders shine after having been exposed to a powerful light. See how magnificently brilliant they are! These, or something like them, were known before the time of Brandt.

Shortly after phosphorus had been discovered, people came to the conclusion that it might be employed for the purpose of procuring artificial light. But I want you to note, that although phosphorus was discovered in 1669 (and the general properties of phosphorus seem to have been studied and were well understood within five years of its discovery), it was not until the year 1833 that phosphorus matches became a commercial success, so that until the year 1833, our old friend the tinder-box held its ground. I will try and give you as nearly as I can a complete list of the various attempts made with the purpose of procuring fire between the years 1669 and 1833.

The first invention was what were called "phosphoric tapers." From the accounts given (although it is not easy to understand the description), phosphoric tapers seem to have been sulphur matches with a little piece of phosphorus enclosed in glass fixed on the top of the match, the idea being that you had only to break the glass and expose the phosphorus to air for it to catch fire immediately and ignite the sulphur. If this was the notion (although I am not sure), it is not easy to understand how the phosphoric tapers were worked. The second invention for the purpose of utilizing phosphorus for getting fire was by scraping with a match a little phosphorus from a bottle coated with a phosphorus composition, and firing it by friction. The fact is, phosphorus may be easily ignited by slight friction. If I wrap a small piece of phosphorus in paper, as I am doing now, and rub the paper on the table, you see I readily fire my phosphorus.