584 THE HIGHER ANIMALS. 



see how the two methods of obtaining fire may have origi- 

 nated.* 



The chimpanzee builds himself a house or resting-place 

 quite equal to that of some savages. Our earliest ancestors 

 therefore may have had this art ; but even if not, when they 

 became hunters, and, as we find to be the case with all hunt- 

 ing tribes, supplemented the inefficiency of their weapons by 

 an intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of 

 the animals on which they preyed, they could not fail to ob- 

 serve, and perhaps to copy, the houses which various species 

 of animals construct for themselves. 



The Esquimaux have no pottery ; they use hollow stones 

 as a substitute; but we have seen how they sometimes improve 

 upon these by a rim of clay. To extend this rim, diminish, 

 and at last replace the stone, is an obvious process. In hotter 

 countries, vessels of wood, or the shells of fruit, such as cocoa- 



* 



nuts and gourds, are used for holding liquids. These will not 

 stand fire, but in some cases by plastering them on the out- 

 side with clay, they are enabled to do so. There is some 

 evidence that this obvious improvement has been made by 

 several separate tribes even in modern times. Other similar 

 cases might be mentioned, in which by a very simple and 

 apparently obvious process, an important improvement is 

 secured. It seems very improbable that any such advantage 

 should ever be lost again. There is no evidence, says Mr. 

 Tylor,-f- "of any tribe giving up the use of the spindle to twist 

 their thread by hand, or having been in the habit of working 

 the fire-drill with a thong, and going back to the clumsier 

 practice of working it without, and it is even hard to fancy 

 such a thing happening." What follows from this argument ? 

 Evidently that the lowest races of existing savages must, 



* The idea of using fire would ning, and by the natural fires which 

 also have been suggested by vol- occur in hot summers, 

 canoes, by trees set on tire by light- t 1. c. p. 364. 



