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272 MATAPAN little coffee. The quantities of the first ex- ported in 1871, '72, and '73 were as follows : YIARS. BOXM. Hogsheads. Total in Ibs. 18T1. MMT4 1,218,626 i;269,665 191,469 281,888 205,044 608,585,850 821,508,750 764,171,000 1872 1878 The imports include manufactured goods, bread- stuffs, and provisions, mainly from the United States, and machinery, partly from Great Brit- ain and partly from the United States. About 500 American vessels of all sizes visit the port annually; and the coasting trade, especially with Havana, is very extensive. Matanzas is con- nected by two lines of railway with Havana. MATAPAN, Cape. See CAPE MATAPAN. M ATAUO, a maritime city of Catalonia, Spain, in the province and 16 m. N. N. E. of the city of Barcelona ; pop. about 17,500. It is divided into the old and new towns ; the former on a declivity, with narrow and crooked streets, and the latter with regular and spacious streets, and well built. There are eight squares. Be- sides the parish church, embellished with good paintings by Viladomat and Montafia, there are several chapels, two convents, a city hall, court house, prison, and barracks. The hospital and the custom house are fine structures. There is a college founded in 1 737. Matar6 is a pros- perous manufacturing town, producing cotton, linen, woollen, and some silk fabrics, sails, ropes, glass, hardware, soap, leather, wine, and brandy. Timber and fruit are also exported. Fishing is extensively carried on. Mataro is connected with Barcelona by a railway opened in October, 1848, the first built in Spain. NATCH, a small stick of combustible material furnished with some very inflammable com- position, and used for producing fire. It is commonly known in England as the " lucifer match" or "lucifer." In 1680, a few years after the discovery of phosphorus, that sub- stance was introduced for this purpose in Lon- don by Godfrey Hanckwitz, who applied it by rubbing it between folds of brown paper till it took fire; it was then made to ignite a stick, one end of which had been dipped in sulphur, and which may be considered the earliest form of the common match. An- other form extensively used was called chem- ical matches, which were sold in little cases called phosphorus boxes, containing a few matches, at first as high as 15s. a box. They were small sticks of wood dipped first in sul- phur, and then in a composition of chlorate of potash, flowers of sulphur, colophony, gum or sugar, and cinnabar for coloring. Accom- panying them in the box was a vial containing sulphuric acid, into which the match being dipped, it was instantly ignited by the chemi- cal action induced between the acid and chlo- rate of potash. The other ingredients were added merely on account of their combustible qualities. The primitive flint, steel, and tinder, however, remained in common nse till the in- MATCH vention of the lucifer match in 1829, by Mr, John Walker, chemist, at Stockton-upon-Tees. In his experiments upon chlorate of potash, he found that this could be instantly ignited by friction, as in rapidly drawing a stick coated with it and phosphorus by means of muci- lage or glue through folded sand-paper. Mr. Walker manufactured but few of these match- es for use in his neighborhood. Faraday, learning of them, procured some, and brought them into public notice. Their useful proper- ties-were soon perceived, and their manufac- ture rapidly increased, till it became an im- portant branch of industry in Europe and the United States. The best wood for matches is clear white pine, which possesses the soft- ness required for the manufacturing process, together with the necessary stiffness and in- flammability; and the quantity of this con- sumed in their manufacture is enormous. The wood is first sawed into blocks of uniform size, and the length of two matches. By ma- chines of ingenious construction, these are after- ward slit without loss of material into splints. They are then dipped in melted sulphur, and afterward in phosphorus composition. Round matches are formed by forcing the wood end- wise through holes in plates, which in the English works are an inch thick, with steel face and bell-metal back. In American es- tablishments tubes are employed whether for round or square splints. The perforations are made as near together as possible, only leav- ing enough of the metal between to give the necessary strength for cutting. This inven- tion was patented in England by Keuben Par- tridge in 1842. Matches are now often made without sulphur, paraflBne oil being employed for saturating the wood. According to Bott- ger, the best composition for matches consists of phosphorus 4 parts, nitre 10, fine glue 6, red ochre 5, and smalt 2 parts. "Safety luci- fer matches " are made, in which a part of the combustibles, as the phosphorus, are placed upon one surface, as a piece of sand-paper, while the other part, containing chlorate or nitrate of potash, is placed on the tip of the match. Neither match nor sand-paper singly will take fire from friction except when rubbed against each other. To prevent matches from smouldering, the wood is sometimes soaked in a solution of alum, borax, Glauber salts, or Epsom salts. Nearly all the operations of match making, formerly conducted by hand, are now accomplished by machinery. In large establishments four machines are used for cut- ting, dipping, and delivering the matches. Two- inch pine plank is sawed up the length of the match, which is 2 in. These go into the ma- chine for cutting, where at every stroke 12 matches are cut, and by the succeeding stroke pushed into slats arranged on a double chain, 250 ft. long, which carries them to the sulphur vat, and thence to the phosphorus vat, and thus across the room and back, returning them at a point in front of the cutting machine, where