FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 57 



and this when it had been a few days exposed to the sun took fire 

 quickly and burned hke charcoal." ^° 



An observer in Madeira in 1838 writes that the estiercol of the ass 

 was used for fuel, as the bois de vache of the buffalo in America. 



Bones, fish, birds, and fat. — These fuels, while observed in a number 

 of cases, are to be classed as adventitious fuels, or if in customary 

 use, are occasioned by the great abundance of the material to burn. 

 Tliis may have been the case with the Indians inhabiting the shores 

 of the Columbia River from Lewis River to the falls, who were said 

 by Lewis and Clarke, the explorers, to consume as food or fuel all 

 the fish which they take. *^ 



The same is no doubt true concerning the burning of the dried bod- 

 ies of the great auk on the northeast coast of the United States and 

 Canada for fuel. It is known that these now extinct birds were 

 in enormous numbers and easy to catch. E. Charlton states that 

 the dried bodies of the auk were used as fuel on the Westmann 

 Islands.*^ 



Bones seem unpromising fuel, but really make a hot and protrac- 

 ted fire, as American frontiersmen know. The Gauchos or cowboys 

 of South America were acquainted with this fact.*' An ancient ref- 

 erence by Herodotus attributes the custom to the Scythians. " In 

 Ezekiel xxiv, 5 and 10, burning bones under a boiling pot is spoken 

 of. The Eskimo are said b}^ Klemm to burn bones rubbed with 

 fat.*^ There is reason to beheve that the bones of the giant moa 

 of New Zealand were burnt as fuel.*^ 



Extensive use is made by the Eskimo of the blubber of the seal 

 and walrus for cooking food in pots over the lamp. The fat of these 

 animals is best, that of the reindeer containing less oil and produc- 

 ing acrid fumes. 



Peat. — This material is of wide distribution, but few references arp 

 to be found of its use among uncivilized peoples. It is probable 

 that the need for preparing peat by drying prevented its use. The 

 Eskimo of the east coast of Greenland made some use of peat.*^ 



Coal. — The first users of coal were the Pueblo Indians of Arizona. 

 Near the Hopi pueblo of Walpi are abundant traces of burnt coal, 

 and in an ancient village site some miles away the remains of a pot- 

 tery baking place with la3'ers of cinders and ashes were discovered. *^ 



"Travels of Dr. Thomas Shaw. Lives of Celebrated Travellers, vol. 2, 1835, p. 27. 



*' Lewis ami Clark, p. 142. 



<> Trans. Tyneside Naturalist Field Club, vol. 4, 1859, p. 113; reprint in Zoologist, 1S60, pp. 6S83-C888. 

 Allen, Journ. Amer. Naturalist, vol. 10. January, 1876, p. 48. 



" Charles Darwin. Journal, London, 1870, p. 194. 



" Herodotus, vol. 4, p. 61. 



« O. Klemm. Culturgeschichte, vol. 2, p. 229. 



** Julius Haas. Moas and Moa Hunters of New Zealand, Philos. Inst, of Canterbury, New Zea- 

 land, 1871. 



" F. Nansen. Across Greenland, vol. 2, 1890, p. 293. 



" Walter Hough. Mu.seum-Qates Expedition, Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1901. 



