By both the methods described above, the fire was obtained by rubbing or friction. The friction method seems to have been used by all primitive peoples, and it is still in use among savages in various parts of the world.
FIG. 5.—STRIKING FIRE.
The second step in fire-making was taken when it was discovered that a spark can be made by striking together a stone and a piece of iron ore. Strike a piece of flint against a piece of iron ore known as pyrites, or fire-stone, and you will make sparks fly. (Fig. 5.) Let these sparks fall into small pieces of dried moss or powdered charcoal, and the tinder, as the moss or the charcoal is called, will catch fire. It will glow, but it will not blaze. Now hold a dry splinter in the glowing tinder, and fan or blow with the breath and the splinter will burst into a flame. If you will tip your splinter with sulphur before you place it in the burning tinder, you will get a flame at once. This was the strike-a-light, or percussion, method of making a fire. It followed the friction method, and was a great improvement upon it because it took less work and a shorter time to get a blaze. The regular outfit for fire-making with the strike-a-light consisted of a tinder-box, a piece of steel, a piece of flint, and some splinters tipped with sulphur (Fig. 6). The flint and steel were struck together, and the sparks thus made fell into the tinder and made it glow. A splinter was applied as quickly as possible to the tinder, and when a flame was produced the candle which rested in the socket on the tinder-box was lighted. As soon as the splinter was lighted the cover was replaced on the tinder-box, so as to smother the glowing tinder and save it for another time.
FIG. 6.—TINDER BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND SULPHUR-TIPPED SPLINTERS.
The strike-a-light method was discovered many thousands of years ago, and it has been used by nearly all the civilized nations of the world.[4] And it has not been so very long since this method was laid aside. There are many people now living who remember when the flint and steel and tinder-box were in use in almost every household.
About three hundred years ago a third method of producing fire was discovered. If you should drop a small quantity of sulphuric acid into a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar, you would produce a bright flame. Here was a hint for a new way of making a fire; and a thoughtful man in Vienna, in the seventeenth century, profited by the hint. He took one of the sulphur-tipped splinters which he was accustomed to use with his tinder-box, and dipped it into sulphuric acid, and then applied it to a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The splinter caught fire and burned with a blaze. Here was neither friction nor percussion. The chemical substances were simply brought together, and they caught fire of themselves; that is to say, they caught fire by chemical action.
The discovery made by the Vienna man led to a new kind of match—the chemical match. A practical outfit for fire-making now consisted of a bottle of sulphuric acid (vitriol) and a bundle of splints tipped with sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sugar. Matches of this kind were very expensive, costing as much as five dollars a hundred; besides, they were very unsatisfactory. Often when the match was dipped into the acid it would not catch fire, but would smolder and sputter and throw the acid about and spoil both the clothes and the temper. These dip-splint matches were used in the eighteenth century by those who liked them and could afford to buy them. They did not, however, drive out the old strike-a-light and tinder-box.
In the nineteenth century—the century in which so many wonderful things were done—the fourth step in the development of the match was taken. In 1827, John Walker, a druggist in a small English town, tipped a splint with sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sulphid of antimony, and rubbed it on sandpaper, and it burst into flame. The druggist had discovered the first friction-chemical match, the kind we use to-day. It is called friction-chemical because it is made by mixing certain chemicals together and rubbing them. Although Walker's match did not require the bottle of acid, nevertheless it was not a good one. It could be lighted only by hard rubbing, and it sputtered and threw fire in all directions. In a few years, however, phosphorus was substituted on the tip for antimony, and the change worked wonders. The match could now be lighted with very little rubbing, and it was no longer necessary to have sandpaper upon which to rub it. It would ignite when rubbed on any dry surface, and there was no longer any sputtering. This was the phosphorus match, the match with which we are so familiar.