Science: Cheap Light

European smokers last week attentively read press despatches announcing that the German dye trust had developed a combustible called bonalin for lighters. Bonalin, said the news, would not smoke, smell or explode. The new fuel comes in a tube, like toothpaste. When squeezed into the lighter it becomes a clear combustible liquid.

Similar fuels have been sold in U. S. for more than a year, have not been wholly successful because they are too easily affected by temperature. The advent of bonalin has more significance in Europe than in the U. S. Because of monopolies (Germany, France, Rumania, Hungary, Jugoslavia) matches are so expensive that lighters are cheaper to use.

A package of matches in Germany costs 1.95 pfennigs. Enough bonalin to light 30 cigarets can be purchased for .8 pfennig. Lighters originated in Vienna 25 years ago. Their popularity waned, was revived by soldiers during the War who were not allowed matches. Today a lighter can be had in England for 10½, in France for 20½. Germany sells an exact replica of the expensive British Dunhill lighter ($5 in other countries) for $1.