| Show wmww WALKER MADE FIRST MATCH In tho nineteenth century the century cen-tury In which so many wonderful things were done tho fourth stop In the development of the match was taken In 1827 John Walker a druggist drug-gist In u small English town tipped a splint with sulphur chlorate of potash pot-ash and sulphld of antimony and rubbed It on sandpaper and It burst into flame Tho druggist had discovered tho first friction chemical match the kind wo use today It is called friction chemical because it Is made by mixing mix-Ing certain chemicals together and rubbing thorn Although Walkers match did not require tho bottle of acid it nevertheless was not a good one It could be lighted only by hard rubbing and It sputtered and threw fire in > ill directions In a few years however phosphorus phosphor-us was substituted on the tip for antimony anti-mony and tho change worked won ders Tho match could now bo lighted with very little rubbing and It was no longer necessary to have sandpaper sand-paper upon which to rub It It would Ignite when rubbed on any dry surface sur-face and there was no longer any sputtering This was the phosphorus match the match with which we nrq so familiar After tho Invention of the easily lighted phosphorus match there was a o longer use for the dipsplint or tho strikcallght The old methods of getting get-ting a blaze wero gradually laid aside and forgotten Tho first phosphorus matches were sold at 25 cents a block a block containing 144 matches and they wore used by but few Now a hundred matches can bo bought for a cent It Is said that In the United States wo use about 15 000000000 matches a year This on an average Is about five matches a day for every porsonSt Nicholas |
