Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xvii making artificial light Of course we can only make light in the same sense as we can make waves in the sea, for light is merely a succession of waves in the all-pervading tether of space. But the means we have discovered for producing light are of interest to us. It is quite an easy matter to produce artificial light by burning any combustible substance; we have only to start the chemical combinations which we call combustion, and the conflagration will proceed on its own account. Indeed, we know the great difficulty of stopping a fire as long as it can get at plenty of combustible material. A single match might set enormous forests on fire. But our forefathers did not find it so easy a task to produce fire; they had to supply a good deal of personal energy to obtain even a tiny spark. Of course, when they had once set a fire agoing in the morning, they could obtain any number of other lights from it, until they let it die out at night-time. In the evening the careful housewife would make some tinder by charring a linen rag. This half-burnt rag was placed carefully in a tinderbox along with a piece of flint and steel. I wonder what the modern cook would say if, when she rose on a dark winter morning, she could obtain no light until she succeeded in producing a spark by striking a piece of flint and steel together, and causing this hard-earned spark to ignite the tinder? It might take only one minute, but it might take half an hour; indeed, a householder might be compelled to go and borrow a light from a neighbour at times. Even when the spark was produced successfully, and the tinder ignited, there was no flame. The smouldering rag had to be carefully nursed until a brimstone match was lighted by it. These early matches...
