The ley or lixivium in which the rope is soaked, is composed of wood ashes and quick lime; and every hundred pounds of match require fifty pounds of the former, and twenty-five pounds of the latter. They are boiled for fifteen hours and are taken out of the tub, piled in heaps and covered with tow, in which situation they are left to ferment. Some recommend, in order to improve them, immersing them two or three times in a nitrous solution, composed of four pounds of saltpetre in a sufficient quantity of water, to every one hundred pounds of match.
The match is afterwards polished by rubbing it along a hair rope, which removes all extraneous fibres that would spread fire too rapidly. Twisting the rope strongly before it is polished, is said to be a good plan.
Matches are finally dried in the sun, and rolled into pieces of twenty yards each, (weighing about two and a half pounds); then made up into barrels or boxes, each of which contains about twenty of these pieces. Match of a good quality burns uniformly at the rate of five inches per hour, and its coal terminates in a point that resists pressure. Match rope may be formed by boiling the rope in water, containing three pounds of wood ashes, one pound of quicklime, two pounds of the liquor of horse-dung, and one pound of saltpetre.
In the small work, called The Bombardier and Pocket Gunner, there are three formulæ given for slow-match: The first consists in soaking light twisted rope in strong ley for three days. It burns three feet in six hours. The second or No. 2, as made at Gibraltar, by immersing blue paper in a solution of eight ounces of nitre in a gallon of water. The No. 3, by soaking rope in a solution of three-fourths of an ounce of sugar of lead in a pint of rain-water, using a larger quantity in the same proportion, according to the rope.
The use of the acetate or sugar of lead for the formation of match-rope, was recommended by a French officer in 1782; and since that time has been used in France both with and without saltpetre. The tinder-wood, if soaked alternately in solutions of saltpetre and sugar of lead, will form a very good match.
M. Rothelet (Archives des Découvertes, v, p. 239) has given some new observations on the use of acetate of lead for the preparation of combustible match-rope. He mentions the use of liquid acetate of lead, which may either be a solution of the oxide of lead in distilled vinegar, or a solution of sugar of lead in water. Rope, he adds, may be made very inflammable, by soaking it well in the liquid acetate, and drying it thoroughly. See also the Bulletin de Pharmacie, September, 1812.
Matches may be made very expeditiously by employing sugar of lead in the following manner: Put a quantity of rain or river water in a kettle over the fire, and when it boils, throw in sugar of lead in the proportion of three-fourths of an ounce to a pound of water. Remove the kettle when the sugar of lead is all dissolved, and immerse the cord or rope in the solution for ten minutes, and then take it out and dry it in the air. If cold water is used, the rope must remain longer in the solution. Rope of every description, old or new, or that made of the linden bark, and damaged match, may be submitted to the same process, previously boiling them in common water to remove their old coating. One pound of solution is required for each pound of cord.[32]
Ruggeri (Pyrotechnie Militaire, p. 185,) has a similar process. The salt of saturn there recommended, is the same as sugar of lead.
When matches have been made by contract, we may determine their quality by examining their interior, to see if they are not mixed with old matches, or pieces of dirty hemp. They should be sufficiently closed without being either too hard or too loose. The lixivium should penetrate to their centre; the difference of colour will indicate the contrary. They should be well dried and partake neither of mould nor rottenness, which are easily ascertained by the colour and smell. To be good, the match when lighted should preserve the fire, and burn uniformly without interruption in moist weather, so that a piece of five inches in length shall last at least one hour.
In 1808, there appeared in our papers an article on the subject of artillery rods, of which the following is a copy. We re-published it in the Aurora, of Philadelphia, in the same year, with comments. Instead of the acetate, nitrate of lead is used.