Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/702

686 factory produced annually four million marks' worth of matches. Rivals soon rose to it in different parts of the world, and several shops in Germany are sending out excellent Böttger safety matches in Swedish dress. They have so far naturalized themselves as to make the condition of the phosphorus match trade a hard one, and in some states the prohibition of the use of the poisonous white phosphorus in matches has been contemplated.

Still the match has not yet reached its highest stage of perfection. A third period of development looms before it. The safety matches can still be lighted only on the prepared surface of the box. An unpoisonous match which will light as readily as a phosphorus match is not yet found.

Not less important than the chemical constitution is the mechanical preparation of the little fire-bearers. The times have passed when a man could make matches profitably with a simple apparatus at home or in a little shop. Machines have gained the victory over hand labor in this field, and they only are competent to turn out the thousands of thousands of sticks that are burned yearly. The favorite wood for matches is the poplar; but as this can not supply all the demand, pine and fir woods are also used. In the early days of the manufacture, the work of cutting the blocks and forming the sticks was performed by hand; but now the machines are so perfected that a single one can turn out as many as 6,000,000 sticks in a day of ten hours.

The ordinary cut stick is not adapted to matches the heads of which contain no sulphur, and the Swedish matches are prepared by a new method, in which the sticks are obtained by a peeling process. The logs are barked and sawed into blocks about eighteen inches long. These are steamed, then drawn out of the tubs and placed while still hot into the peeling machine, where they are turned upon a pivot and cut by a sharp knife into a continuous band of the right thickness, which is also cut into strips as broad as the length of a match. One of these machines, of only two horse power, operated by a man, can in one working day turn out 4,000 square metres of shavings, from which 15,000,000 matches may be made. The narrow ribbons of wood next go into a machine the operation of which is something like that of a common straw chopper. By a simple mechanism from fifty to seventy thicknesses of the ribbons are pushed slowly forward under a sharp knife, which cuts them into sticks of the desired thickness. These fall upon an endless belt and are carried by it into the drying room. There are machines which, worked by a man and a boy, will turn out 28,000,000 sticks a day. The boxes for the Swedish matches are likewise made by the aid of machines, a description of which involves too many technicalities to