No wonder (perhaps you say) that they went to bed early. I should like to draw your attention to one other form of tinder-box, because I do not suppose you have ever seen these kind of things before. I have here two specimens of the pistol form of tinder-box (Fig. 5). Here is the flint, the tinder being contained in this little box. It is the same sort of tinder as we made just now. The tinder was fired with flint and steel in the same way as the old-fashioned flint pistols fired the gunpowder. And you see this pistol tinder-box is so constructed as to serve as a candlestick as well as a tinder-box. I have fired, as you perceive, my charred linen with this curious tinder-box, and thus I get my sulphur match alight once more! [Illustration: Fig. 5.] It was in the year 1669 that Brandt, an alchemist and a merchant--a very distinguished scientific man--discovered the remarkable substance I have here, which we call phosphorus. Brandt was an alchemist. I do not know whether you know what an alchemist is. An alchemist was an old-fashioned chemist. These alchemists had three prominent ideas before them. The first thing they sought for was to discover a something--a powder they thought it ought to be--that would change the commoner or baser metals (such as iron) into gold. The second idea was to discover "a universal solvent," that is, a liquid which would dissolve everything, and they hoped out of this liquid to be able to crystallize gems. And then, having obtained gold and gems, the third thing they desired was "a vital elixir" to prolong their lives indefinitely to enjoy the gold and gems they had manufactured. These were the modest aims of alchemy. Well now--although you may say such notions sound very foolish--let me tell you that great practical discoveries had their origin in the very out-of-the-way researches of the alchemists. Depend upon this, that an object of lofty pursuit, though that object be one of practically impossible attainment, is not unworthy the ambition of the scientific man. Though we cannot scale the summit of the volcanic cone, we may notwithstanding reach a point where we can examine the lava its fires have melted. We may do a great deal even in our attempt to grasp the impossible. It was so with Brandt. He was searching for a something that would change the baser metals into gold, and, in the search, he discovered phosphorus. The chief thing that struck Brandt about phosphorus was its property of shining in the dark without having previously been exposed to light. A great many substances were known to science even at that time that shone in the dark _after_ they had been exposed to light. But it was not until Brandt, in the year 1669, discovered phosphorus that a substance luminous in the dark, without having been previously exposed to light, had been observed. I should like, in passing, to show you how beautifully these phosphorescent powders shine after having been exposed to a powerful light. See how