Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/700

684 Another property of chlorate of potash was discovered shortly afterward. Mixed with various substances—sulphuret of antimony, for example—a combination was produced which exploded, with issue of flame, on being rubbed. This mixture was first applied to matches by Johann Friedrich Kammerer in 1832. Having sulphured the end of the stick, he prepared an adhesive mixture of gum arabic, chlorate of potash, and sulphuret of antimony, dipped the stick in it, and let the whole dry. This new match was lighted by rubbing it, under pressure of the fingers, in a folded piece of sandpaper.

The use of phosphorus was the next improvement. That substance inflames readily when warmed to 50° C, or 122° F.—a temperature easily obtained by lightly scratching the match on a rough surface. Experiments had been made with this substance at the beginning of the century; but the first phosphorus matches were crude and unsafe. Pure phosphorus was kept under water in bottles, whence small bits of it were taken out and lighted by rubbing on leather. Kammerer, not being fully satisfied with his first composition, tried a new one containing phosphorus as well as chlorate of potash. After this there were no more failures of the matches to light, for the phosphorus took fire under the slightest friction and decomposed the chlorate of potash, which gave out the oxygen required to inflame the sulphur, and made a lively combustion possible. The idea found favor, and the first large factory of phosphorus matches was erected in Vienna by Stephan Römer and J. Preschel. This match, too, had its defects. The mixture of phosphorus and chlorate of potash exploded with such force as to be available for filling bombs. Some serious accidents occurred in the shops, and the transportation of the material was forbidden in several countries. The new matches were wild comrades that needed taming. At last the Vienna makers succeeded in replacing the chlorate of potash by other substances—such as minium, peroxide of lead, and manganese oxide—which gave out oxygen more slowly.

Objections were still brought against these matches. The burning sulphur emitted an offensive odor: to obviate this, paraffin was introduced in the place of sulphur as the substance in which the sticks should be dipped before finishing their heads. A more serious objection was founded on the poisonous nature of the vapor of phosphorus, by reason of which the use of even only a few matches at a time was attended with peril, and the workmen in the factories became subject to dangerous diseases. Yet the manufacturers would not give up phosphorus, and the public, having become accustomed to the new matches, demanded them, so that it was not feasible to prohibit the making of them, and the attention of the Government was rather directed to