14 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL, MUSEUM 



the families becomes rectangular. A suggestion of the coalescence 

 to form the long or communal house is seen in James Teit's descrip- 

 tion of the houses built by the Thompson River Indians on the 

 occasion of a feast. These Indians built round lodges with fire in 

 the center and smoke hole above. For the festival they built two 

 lean-tos with fronts facing, and made fires along the alley between. 

 They covered the alley with brush and poles thrown over the two 

 sections, forming an immense lodge.*^ Another suggestion is the 

 grouping of five huts among the Fuegians, with fire in center of the 

 group, ^^ 



The theory offered, therefore, is that the relationship of house fire 

 to the house in the open country, away from caves and natural 

 shelters, is: Fire in front of a windbreak; in middle of circular break; 

 in the middle of the conical house, supposed to be an archaic form; 

 in the compartments of the communal house; in square or oblong 

 rectangular houses, generally in the center, and with the develop- 

 ment of architecture at the side or end of the room. 



HEATING APPLIANCES FOR SPECIAL USES 



At first the fire in the house was not for any special purpose, but 

 was of general utility. The divarication of the fire had not been 

 carried on to any important degree. The prime ideas of warmth, 

 light, and heat for cooking covered most of the employments of fire, 

 however, and were concentrated in one fireplace. The great advance- 

 ment which grew out of the simple fireplace is characterized by the 

 multiplication of devices through which portions of fire are made to 

 do special work. These devices are innumerable, and are indices of 

 the stages of progress through which man has passed. They mark 

 a very substantial progress, on the whole without retrogression, slow 

 in the earlier stages and in the later stages rushing to an enormous 

 development not to be catalogued or comprehended. 



If warming the habitation was incidental in the early uses of the 

 fireplace it is because such need was not apparent. It is presumed 

 that man was inured to stresses of lower temperature, which even in 

 tropical latitudes seem grievous at times. It may be surmised that 

 fire as a warming agent was appreciated by anaemic or enfeebled 

 persons, or on certain occasions, as childbirth. Nevertheless, warming 

 is established from the first as one of the important ideas to be de- 

 veloped in overcoming environmental conditions. 



"And the servants and ofl&cers stood there who had made a fire of 

 coals, for it was cold; and they warmed themselves; and Peter stood 

 with them, and warmed himself." John xviii, 18. 



"James Teit. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., New 

 York, vol. 2, Anthrop., p. 1, April, 1900, p. 196. 

 •3 Fannie B. Ward. Evening Star, Washington, Jan. 16. 1892. 



