The first matches were made by hand, one by one, and were of necessity few and costly. Matches are now made and boxed by machinery. One million splints can be cut in an hour with the machinery in use. Some single manufacturing firms make as many as one hundred millions of matches in a day. With diminished cost of production have come decreased prices, so that now a large box can be purchased for a very few cents. Until about 1860 railroads in the United States would not receive matches for transportation, owing to the danger involved. The distribution before that year was mainly by canal or wagon. A match is a little thing, but it is one of the world's really great inventions. CHAPTER XIV PHOTOGRAPHY Photography is one of the many triumphs of the human mind over time and space. Thousands of miles are between you and the wonderful Taj Mahal. You may never be able to go to it. But as the mountain would not go to Mohammed and Mohammed therefore went to the mountain, so photography brings the Taj Mahal to you. The chief struggle for civilization is with these two abstract antagonists--time and space. In this struggle the achievements of photography are such as to win it a place among the world's great inventions and discoveries. Here, again, we borrow words from the Greeks. _Photography_ comes from the Greek noun _phos_ meaning "light" and the Greek verb _graphein_ signifying "to write," already referred to several times in this volume. Photography is therefore the science and the art of writing or reproducing objects by means of light. The science of photography depends upon the action of light on certain chemicals, usually compounds of silver. These chemicals are spread upon a delicately sensitized metallic plate, which is exposed to light. The action of light fixes the object desired upon this plate, from which copies of the picture are made on paper of suitable kind. Like most of the great discoveries and inventions, photography is not old. It had its beginning in 1777, when the Swedish chemist Scheele began to inquire scientifically into the reason and effect of the darkening of silver chloride by the rays of the sun. The first picture ever made by the use of light on a sensitive surface was made in 1791 by Thomas Wedgewood, an Englishman. The principle of the photographer's camera was discovered in 1569 by Della Porta, of Naples. To Nicéphore Niepce, a Frenchman, belongs the honor of producing the first camera picture. This was in 1827 after thirteen years of experimenting. He called his process "heliography," _helios_ being the Greek word for _sun_. His process consisted of coating a piece of plated silver or glass with asphaltum or bitumen, and exposing the plate in the camera for a time varying in length from four to six hours. The light acted on the asphaltum in such a way as to leave the image on the plate.