118 BULLETIN 139^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



bamboo tube containing the tinder placed in a bamboo box. A steel 

 from the Punjab, India, is a straight bar with a curved handle welded 

 to it. The Koords of Bhutan use the C-shaped European form of steel, 

 and a similar specimen was collected at Baghdad. 



The strike-a-light does not appear in native African collections, 

 and its introduction from outside is quite limited. Around the Med- 

 iterranean coast of North Africa this device partakes of its particular 

 European origin. From the Anbanala Tribe, valley of the River 

 Faraony, comes a steel with a broad oblong striking surface turned over 

 at one end and formed into a tang for holding the implements. 

 The steel, flint, and tinder, are contained in a well-carved wooden box. 



The above review of the etlmography of the flint and steel strike-a- 

 Hght on account of the scarcity of the material is necessarily incom- 

 plete. The available material used, however, proves that this method 

 of fire making has spread in recent times from the centers of civiliza- 

 tion. Dr. Edward B. Tylor's remarks on the subject are illuminating: 



"The flint and steel may have come into use at any time after the 

 beginning of the Iron Age, but history fails to tell us the date of its intro- 

 duction in Greece, Rome, Cliina, and most other districts of the Old 

 World. In modern times it has made its way with iron into many new 

 places, though it has not always been able to supersede the fire sticks at 

 once; sometimes, it seems, from a difficulty in getting flints. For in- 

 stance, it was necessary inSumatra to import the flints from abroad, and 

 thus they did not come immediately into general use among the 

 natives; and there may perhaps be a similar reason for the fire drill 

 having held its ground to this day among some of the iron-using races 

 of southern Africa." ^^ 



Mention here may be made of the tinder pistol, in which the flint- 

 lock mechanism as in an ordinary pistol struck the spark into a tin- 

 der pan. Sometimes the apparatus was inclosed in an egg-shaped 

 metal box for carrying in the pocket. A seventeenth century pocket 

 lamp used in ecclesiastical duties had flint, steel, and tinder in a 

 compartment. 



The wheel tinder box, an improvement on the tinder pistol, had a 

 steel wheel balanced over the tinder pan in a tin box. The wheel was 

 turned by a cord over the axle impinging on a flint. The miner's 

 flint or spark lamp was a similar wheel driven with a crank instead 

 of a cord. It was used several score years ago in England. 



A curiosity in the appfication of flint and steel was a flintlock 

 operated by clockwork for firing an explosive at a fixed time. It is 

 attributed to Robert Fulton, who is said to have invented the device 

 for defense of New York Harbor by torpedo against the British in 

 the War of 1812. 



" E. B. Tylor. Early History of Mankind, Boston, 1878, p. 248. 



