FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 85 



12. Strike-a-light. Flint and steel and box for holding flint, steel, 

 and tinder. Sulphur-tipped sphnt ignited from the tinder. England. 



13. Strike-a-light. Bamboo tube and striker of pottery, used as 

 flint and steel. Two boxes for tinder. Malay. 



14. Tinder pistol. Gunlock adapted for throwing spaiks into tin- 

 der. England. 



15. Strike-a-light. Combination of flint, steel, tinder, and extin- 

 guisher, for carrj'^ing in the pocket. Spain. 



16. Fire syringe. Cyhnder with closely fitting piston bearing tin- 

 der. Driving the piston down smartly kindles the tinder. Siamese 

 and Malays. 



17. Lens. Used for producing fire by focussing sunlight upon tin- 

 der. Ancient Greeks. 



18. Hydrogen lamp. Hydrogen gas is made to play upon spongy 

 platinum, causing it to glow. Germany, 1824. 



19. Match-light box. Bottle of sulphuric acid, into which splints 

 tipped with potassium chlorate and sugar were dipped. Vienna, 1809. 



20. Matches. Various kinds of phosphorus matches. 



21. Electric gaslighter. Cylinder containing a small dynamo run 

 by pressure of the finger, producing sparks between the points at the 

 upper end of the tube. United States, 1882. 



On the physical side the following means have been employed for 

 getting fire, namely, 1, muscular energy is converted into heat by 

 friction and arrest of motion, as in the drill and flint and steel; 

 2, the energy of the concentration of heat rays by the lens and con- 

 cave mirror; 3, the energy of the compression and occlusion of gases, 

 as in the aerophore and hydrogen lamps; 4, the energy of chemical 

 combination, as in matches, pyrophores, sodium, etc. ; and 5, the en- 

 ergy of electrical force, as the sparking apparatus. The sucessive 

 methods form a series coincident with the order of man's adaptation 

 and utilization of the forces of nature. 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE FIRE DRILL 



There are ancient references to the fire drill which are of some 

 interest. As these occur in the period of advanced civilization, their 

 bearing on the early stages of the invention is not particularl}^ im- 

 portant. Indeed, the earliest references show only the record of a 

 survival from an indefinite time, perhaps very ancient, but showing 

 no more than the practice of a savage tribe as at the present. Un- 

 questionably the invention is very ancient and in a stage of society 

 when writing was unknown, though archeological evidence is not 

 forthcoming to place the invention in any of the past human periods. 

 The evidence of the complexity of the problems involved in the in- 

 vention rather than the discovery of the art of making fire with a 



