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MATE they are delivered in their natural order. They are gathered up by a boy into trays, and sent to the packing room. In this manner 1,000 gross or 144,000 small boxes of matches are made in a day. No correct statistics of match ma- king can be given, but it has been estimated that six matches a day for each individual of the population of Europe and North America is the average consumption. From these figures it is easy to see that the business is enormous. The acid fumes thrown off from phosphorus in the various processes of making matches frequently cause among the people employed a terrible disease which attacks the teeth and jaws; and to such an alarming extent did it prevail in Germany, that the attention of the government was called to it. The dippers are most liable to suffer in this way, in consequence of standing for hours over the heated slab upon which the phosphorus is spread. As persons with decayed teeth are most suscep- tible to the disease, they are carefully exclu- ded from some manufactories. No antidote has yet been discovered to this disease. Its natural course is to rot the entire jaw bone away. (See PHOSPHORUS.) Insignificant as matches are, it is important, on account of the immense numbers made, that the manufac- tories should be in districts where timber is cheap. Some of the splints are exported to the West Indies and South America. The match- es themselves are largely exported to the East and West Indies, Australia, China, Mexico, South America, &c. MATE, or Paraguay Tea, the leaves of a native holly found in South America, an infusion of which is drunk by the people as tea is by Chi- nese and Europeans. The leaf and the drink Yerba Mat6 (Ilex Paraguayensis). are called mate, the aboriginal name for the cup used in preparing the infusion. The plant, called yerba mate, is the ilex Paraguay 'ensis, a holly which grows upon the banks of rivers in Paraguay and in the mountains of Brazil ; it is a tree 15 or 20 ft. high, and when allowed to develop itself forms a handsome head, but where its branches are collected it is only a moderate-sized shrub with numerous stems from one root. The ovate lanceolate leaves are persistent, 4 to 5 in. long, with their mar- gins unequally serrate ; the numerous white flowers are in umbellate clusters, and succeed- ed by a four-seeded berry about the size of a pepper grain. The leaves are collected by par- ties of 20 to 50 persons, who go to the for- ests prepared for an encampment of several months. The first step is to prepare a hard earthen floor, by beating the ground with mal- lets ; over this an arch of poles is built, upon which are laid the leafy branches of the mate, where they are kept over a lively fire made be- neath until thoroughly scorched; after this roasting, the leaves are beaten from the branch- es by means of sticks, in which operation they are reduced to a coarse powder. The broken leaves are packed in leathern sacks made of a bullock's hide, which contain from 200 to 220 Ibs. A day's work for a peon is the collection of a sufficient amount to make 200 Ibs. of the prepared mat6. Several varieties are known, depending upon the development of the leaf and the care taken in the preparation of it. The method of using it is to place a handful of the leaves in the mate or cup, and pour boil- ing water over them ; as soon as the infusion is sufficiently cool to be tolerated, it is sucked through a tube called a boquilla, which is per- forated with holes at the lower end to prevent the entrance of fragments of the leaves ; the cup is passed from one to another, each person among the South Americans using the same tube in turn; but Europeans living in the country carry a small glass tube which can be slipped into the opening of the cup. The lat- ter is frequently a calabash fixed upon a stand, and among the wealthy mounted with silver, or sometimes entirely of silver and elaborately ornamented. The Europeans found the mat6 in use by the aborigines and readily adopted the custom, and it is estimated that no portion of the world consumes so large an amount of Chinese tea in proportion to the population as is used of the mat6 by the South Americans. The infusion of mat6 is usually drunk with- out addition, though some use sugar and others lemon with it ; it is described as having great fascination to those accustomed to it, and those who commence drinking it find it almost im- possible to abandon its use. It is taken at every meal and at all hours of the day, and mar- vellous stories are told of its virtues ; like tea and coffee, it no doubt enables the system to resist fatigue, and its use among miners and others who undertake hard labor is universal in most South American countries. It seems to act as an excitant to the stomach, and in large doses is emetic and purgative. Its more important properties, however, are probably closely allied to those of ordinary tea or cof-