The evolution of today's safe, cheap matches took hundreds of years, and many disastrous products failed along the way. Although ancient people learned long ago to carry torches as a convenient source of fire, matches were unheard of until around 1000 a.d. Possibly, the Chinese people invented the first primitive match, since Marco Polo (1254-1324) reported seeing matches on his journeys to the Orient during the late 1200s. By the late 1500s, sulfur-tipped matches were being used in England, though they bore little resemblance to modern matches. In 1681 Robert Boyle coated a piece of coarse paper with phosphorus and produced a flame by drawing a sulfur-tipped wooden splint through a fold in the paper. During the 1700s and early 1800s, several small fire-making devices were invented, including the Ethereal Match, the Pocket Luminary, and the Instantaneous Light Box. Most of these were glass tubes or bottles containing flammable...