Makers of Many Things

and steel. We were neither Indians nor Boy Scouts, and we did not know how to make a fire by twirling a stick. There was nothing to do but to trudge off through the snow to th

r and do its best to spoil some one's clothes. Nevertheless, even such matches as these were regarded as a wonderful convenience, and were sold at five dollars a hundred. With the next kind of match that appeared, a piece of folded sandpaper was sold, and the buyer was told to pinch it hard and draw the match through the fold. These matches were amazingly cheap-

e some seven hundred million matches a day in this country alone. It seems like a very simple matter to cut a splinter of wood, dip it into some chemicals, and pack it into a box for sale; an

ESS MATC

pins in a pincushion, and the belt revolves,

e fed into a machine which sends sharp dies through them and thus cuts the match splints. Over the splint cutter a carrier chain is con

, and in about ten minutes the glue and rosin on one end of it have hardened into a hard bulb. It is not a match yet by any means, for scratching it would not make it light. The phosphorus which is to make it into a match is on another dipping-roll. This is sesqui-sulphide of phosphorus. The common yellow phosphorus is poisonous, and workmen in match factories where it was used were

inside of others, and through currents of air. Then they are turned over to a chain divided into sections which carries them to a packing-machine. This machine packs the

traight grain, the dipping-rolls must be kept covered with a fresh supply of composition, and its depth must be always uniform. Even th

n the box and the other igniting substances on the match, so that the match will not light unless it is scratched on the box; but this kind has never been a favorite in the Un

thing, but nothing e