d a chlorate match held against the stopper became ignited.

Match boxes are collectable, and collectors of fire-making and lighting
contrivances often include a few old matches. The lucifer match
consisted of sticks tipped with potassium chlorate and sugar, held
together with gum, igniting when touched with concentrated sulphuric
acid. They were invented in 1805, and by the year 1820 had quite taken
the place of tinder boxes. Various lighting pastes were used, until the
improvements which resulted in the "safety" matches. The dangerous
sulphur and white phosphorus have given place in modern match-making to
sesqui-sulphate mixtures; and wax vestas and other "strikers" have
superseded the curious objects the collector meets with.

The Fireplace.

In studying the curios of the fireplace, it is scarcely necessary to go
back beyond the grates and fire appointments which may be seen in the
old houses standing to-day. Even during the last generation or two there
have been many changes, and in rebuilding and refurnishing the
antiquities of the fireplace have in many instances been swept away.
During more recent days, however, there has been a greater appreciation
of the curio value of mantelpieces and old grates, and it is no uncommon
thing for hundreds and even thousands of pounds to be paid for rare
specimens.

In some instances the fireplace may truly be said to have been the
central attraction, for the old grates and mantelpieces have often
realized as much as the whole of the remainder of the materials secured
when an old house has been pulled down. Some of these mantelpieces of
olden time were magnificent memorials of the sculptor's and the carver's
art. They included overmantels, the entire breastwork of the chimney
often being covered with stone or marble or black oak, right up to the
ceiling or the cornice.

The open hearth was the earlier form of fireplace, and long before
chimneys were built logs of wood burned on it, and in still earlier
times in a basket or brazier, the smoke finding its way to the roof, the
rafters of which soon became blackened. Chimneys, however, are of early
date, and the household curios of the fireplace have almost entirely
been used under such conditions of fuel consumption, the up-draught of
the chimney carrying away the smoke and harmful gases. The firebacks and
the andirons, and later the fire-dogs, of the open fireplaces are
collectable curios of considerable interest, and the ho