German tinder

When lucifers were struck they only fizzed and sputtered, would not burn. German tinder succeeded better; for the exhausted atmosphere, hungering for oxygen, uniting with the atoms of saltpetre in the process of ignition, the tinder, instead of its usual dull glow, threw out a long bright flame, made as it were of electric sparks.

The inflammation of German tinder in the so-called pneumatic tinder-boxes; which are, as we know, little pump-chambers in which the air is rapidly compressed.