Did you ever think how great and how many are the blessings of fire? Try to think of a world without fire. Suppose we should wake up some bitter cold morning and find that all the fires in the world were out, and that there was no way of rekindling them; that the art of kindling a fire had been lost. In such a plight we should all soon be shivering with the cold, for our stoves and furnaces could give us no warmth; we should all soon be hungry, for we could not cook our food; we should all soon be idle, for engines could not draw trains, wheels of factories could not turn, and trade and commerce would come to a standstill; at night we would grope in darkness, for we could use neither lamp nor gas nor electric light. It is easy to see that without fire, whether for light or heat, the life of man would be most wretched.

There never was a time when the world was without fire, but there was a time when men did not know how to kindle fire; and after they learned how to kindle one, it was a long, long time before they learned how to kindle one easily. In these days we can kindle a fire without any trouble, because we can easily get a match; but we must remember that the match is one of the most wonderful things in the world, and that it took men thousands of years to learn how to make one. Let us learn the history of this familiar little object, the match.

Fire was first given to man by nature itself. When a forest is set on fire by cinders from a neighboring volcano, or when a tree is set ablaze by a thunderbolt, we may say that nature strikes a match. In the early history of the world, nature had to kindle all the fires, for man by his own effort was unable to produce a spark. The first method, then, of getting fire for use was to light sticks of wood at a flame kindled by nature—by a volcano, perhaps, or by a stroke of lightning. These firebrands (Fig. 1) were carried to the home and used in kindling the fires there. The fire secured in this way was carefully guarded and was kept burning as long as possible. But the flame, however faithfully watched, would sometimes be extinguished. A sudden gust of wind or a sudden shower would put it out. Then a new firebrand would have to be secured, and this often meant a long journey and a deal of trouble.

In the course of time a man somewhere in the world hit upon a plan of kindling a fire without having any fire to begin with; that is to say, he hit upon a plan of producing a fire by artificial means. He knew that by rubbing his hands together very hard and very fast he could make them very warm. By trial he learned that by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together he could make them very warm. Then he asked himself the question: Can a fire be kindled by rubbing two pieces of wood together, if they are rubbed hard enough? He placed upon the ground a piece of perfectly dry wood (Fig. 2) and rubbed this with the end of a stick until a groove was made. In the groove a fine dust of wood—a kind of sawdust—was made by the rubbing. He went on rubbing hard and fast, and, behold, the dust in the groove began to glow! He placed some dry grass upon the embers and blew upon them with his breath, and the grass burst into a flame.2 Here for the first time a man kindled a fire for himself. He had invented the match, the greatest invention, perhaps, in the history of the world.

The stick-and-groove method—as we may call it—of getting a flame was much better than guarding fire and carrying it from place to place; yet it was, nevertheless, a very clumsy method. The wood used had to be perfectly dry, and the rubbing required a vast amount of work and patience. Sometimes it would take hours to produce the spark. After a while—and doubtless it was a very long while—it was found that it was better to keep the end of the stick in one spot and twirl it (Fig. 3) than it was to plow to and fro with it. The twirling motion made a hole in which the heat produced by the friction was confined in a small space. At first the drilling was done by twirling the stick between the palms of the hands, but this made the hands too hot for comfort, and the fire-makers learned to do the twirling with a cord or thong3 wrapped around the stick (Fig. 4). You see, the upper end of the stick which serves as a drill turns in a cavity in a mouthpiece which the operator holds between his teeth. If you should undertake to use a fire-drill of this kind, it is likely that your jaws would be painfully jarred.

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.

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.

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.

After the invention of the easily-lighted phosphorus match there was no longer use for the dip-splint or the strike-a-light. The old methods of getting a blaze were gradually laid aside and forgotten. The first phosphorus matches were sold at twenty-five cents a block—a block (Fig. 7) containing a hundred and forty-four matches. They were used by few. Now a hundred matches can be bought for a cent. It is said that in the United States we use about 150,000,000,000 matches a year. This, on an average, is about five matches a day for each person.

There is one thing against the phosphorus match: it ignites too easily. If one is left on the floor, it may be ignited by stepping upon it, or by something falling upon it. We may step on a phosphorus match unawares, light it, leave it burning, and thus set the house on fire. Mice often have caused fires by gnawing the phosphorus matches and igniting them. In one city thirty destructive fires were caused in one year by mice lighting matches.

To avoid accident by matches, the safety match (Fig. 8) has recently been invented. The safety match does not contain phosphorus. The phosphorus is mixed with fine sand and glued to the side of the box in which the matches are sold. The safety match, therefore, cannot be lighted unless it is rubbed on the phosphorus on the outside of the box. It is so much better than the old kind of phosphorus match that it is driving the latter out of the market. Indeed, in some places it is forbidden by law to sell any kind of match but the safety match.

The invention of the safety match is the last step in the long history of fire-making. The first match was lighted by rubbing, and the match of our own time is lighted by rubbing; yet what a difference there is between the two! With the plowing-stick or fire-drill it took strength and time and skill to get a blaze; with the safety match an awkward little child can kindle a fire in a second.

And how long it has taken to make the match as good as it is! The steam-engine, the telegraph, the telephone, and the electric light were all in use before the simple little safety match.