Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1886 — Phosphorus for Matches. [ARTICLE]

Phosphorus for Matches.

Who first suggested the use of phosphorus as an inflammable agent in matches is not certainly known. Many people in England have claimed credit, from an apothecary in the Strand up to a member of the present House of Commons. It is said that Derosne, who is known in the history of technical chemistry for his application of the decolorizing properties of animal charcoal to sugar refining, made a friction match with a phosphorus tip so far back as 1816. In Germany the invention of the phosphorus match is attributed to Kammerer, but the name which is most prominent in connection with the early stages of the manufacture is that of Preshel, of Vienna, who, in 1833, had a large factory in operation for the making of lucifers; indeed, it was mainly through his exertions and those of Moldenhauer, of Darmstadt, that Austria and South Germany became for many years the chief sources of the supply of matches. To-day Sweden is rapidly coming to the front among the match-making countries of the world. Altogether in the Scandinavia there are some fourscore factories, the famous one at Joukopmg, with its 6,000 work people, being probably the largest in the world;'in 1880 Sweden exported some 50,000,000,000 matches to all parts of the world. In Germany

and Austria the number of manufactories is much larger. Altogether there are upward of 450 factories in the two countries, but the total output of each country is probably less than that of Sweden, although enormous quantities are sent from Central Europe into Russia, Turkey, and various other parts of Western Asia. In France the manufacture of matches is a Government monopoly.