120 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



portance in the fire-making art as utilitarian devices. Fire by the 

 lens and mirror in such historical advices in the classics must be 

 nuiinly referred to cult. The direct capturing of fire from the sun 

 must appeal to those who desired pure fire with which to worship. 



The lens necessarily subdates the period of quartz working. Lenses 

 so far recovered from archeological sites would be assigned to the 

 Roman period. There is no doubt that the lens was used for light- 

 ing the sacred fire in Rome. Such use is mentioned by Aristophanes 

 and by Plutarch. ^^ 



Glass mirrors were made by the Romans to such an extent that 

 they displaced the metal mirrors of earlier technology, or rather com- 

 bined metal and glass in a new way. The focusing of the sun's rays 

 by curved mirror surfaces was known to the Romans and Greeks; 

 witness the burning of the fleet at SjTacuse by Archimedes. This 

 feat has been questioned, but modern research shows that the con- 

 ditions of the problem confronting Archimedes could be satisfied by 

 mirrors set in the narrow confines of a harbor magnified in story. 

 The Romans employed also the mirror to light the sacrifice. 



The use of the mirror for fire malting elsewhere, as in Mexico and 

 Peru, has been affirmed by writers whose observations were affected 

 by a knowledge of the classics. There is not a shred of archeological 

 evidence that the Mexicans or Peruvians knew the properties of reg- 

 ularly curved mirrors, although numerous plane mirrors of obsidian 

 and pyrites have been unearthed in Mexico. 



In Europe even after the crystal lens had become available, if not 

 common, it had limited use as a fire-making device, and maj^ be com- 

 pared in this respect with the sundial. 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF TINDER 



The inflammable substance called tinder is an indispensable adjunct 

 to all strike-a-lights, but it is not required with the drill, although 

 frequently used in wood friction to augment the coal secured by drill- 

 ing. The selection and preparation of tinder requires considerable 

 knowledge and skill. The human forethought incorporated in the 

 triad of the strike-a-light marks it not as a simple invention but an 

 assemblage of remarkable inventions. 



The variety of tinder is very great. For the most part vegetal 

 substances are employed. 



America. — The Eskimo of Point Barrow, Alaska, use the catkins 

 of the Arctic willow for tinder. This is the usual tinder among the 

 Bering Strait Eskimo. The Eskimo of Cumberland Gulf, Canada, 

 make tinder of the down of the "Arctic cotton" plant, Eriophorum 

 calothrix. 



" Morris Hickey Morgan. De Ignis Elicienda Modis Apud Antiques. Harvard Studies in Classical 

 Philology, vol. 1, Boston, 1890. Berthold Laufer. Optical Lenses. T'ouugh-pao, ser. 2, vol. 16, No. 2 

 May, 1915. 



