A big business was soon built up in Austria on the basis of
this obscure chemical element rescued from the dump-heap. The sale of
the cerite lighters in France threatened to upset the finances of the
republic, which derived large revenue from its monopoly of match-making,
so the French Government imposed a tax upon every man who carried one.
American tourists who bought these lighters in Germany used to be much
annoyed at being held up on the French frontier and compelled to take
out a license. During the war the cerium sparklers were much used in the
trenches for lighting cigarettes, but--as those who have seen "The
Better 'Ole" will know--they sometimes fail to strike fire. Auer-metal
or cerium-iron alloy was used in munitions to ignite hand grenades and
to blazon the flight of trailer shells. There are many other pyrophoric
(light-producing) alloys, including steel, which our ancestors used with
flint before matches and percussion caps were invented.
There are more than fifty metals known and not half of them have come
into common use, so there is still plenty of room for the expansion of
the science of metallurgy.
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