PIBE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN OTTLTTJRE 219 



On the Eastern Shore of Marjdand and at other points on the 

 Atlantic coast shells of the Fulgur and Sycotypus, called aonch. were 

 used as lamps for illuminating piers and landings. They are still 

 used when it is desired to give an effect of "old times" to excite the 

 wonder of visitors. 



The Makah Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington, are said to 

 have used in 1850 a lamp consisting of a shell with bark wick, but 

 J. G. Swan's paper on these Indians, containing observations made 

 near this date, does not mention the lamp. 



The Aino lamp, wliile not extemporaneous, being in common use, 

 is probably accultural, following the Chinese and Japanese form but 

 using the well-adapted Mactra lutraria shell instead of the pottery 

 or metal saucers. The lamp is mounted in a stick split at the end 

 and wedged out to form prongs, or in a natural crotched stick. It 

 is set up alongside of the box hearth. The wick is of rush, as in the 

 Japanese lamps. 



In Brittany a pecten-shell lamp was in use some years ago. Fol- 

 lowing north European custom with the grease lamp, the Brittany 

 lamp is set in a drip catcher consisting of another pecten shell and 

 sometimes had a shell lid as an improvement, giving the lamp the 

 orm of a crusie. 



PRIMITIVE FORMS— SAUCER LAMPS 



A few small, shallow vessels of stone, thought to be lamps, have 

 been found in several prehistoric stations in France. Some of these 

 are of doubtful age, some Gallo-Roman, and a few, as the St. Juhen 

 Maumont (Correge) specimen described by M. Riviere, ^^ which are 

 tentatively placed as occurring in a very old period. This specimen 

 is obscurely beaked, which would indicate an unstandardized lamp, in 

 this case of stone, of a comparatively late period. There appears to 

 be no evidence that lamps have been taken from a definite stratum 

 as old as the Neolithic. The presumption is that no European lamp 

 dates back of the Iron Age. 



The shallow circular dish termed "saucer" is taken as the primi- 

 tive type of lamp employed at a time when this form of lighting 

 device had become a customary utensil. In it was burned oil or fat 

 by means of a central wick. If, however, the saucer is very shallow, 

 as the Chinese form, the wick could rest precariously on the margin 

 (pi. 40, fig. 7) . In these lamps no adaptation is seen for the placing 

 of the wick. The lamp, therefore, is possessed of a reservoir only, 

 which is the fundamental feature of the lamp. 



LAMPS IN WHICH WICK IS BROUGHT TO THE EDGE 



Modifications of the saucer lamp are plentiful for the purpose of 

 placing the wick. Examples are the shallow grooves pounded in 



>«M. Emile Riviere. La Lampe on pierre de Saint Julien Maumont, Comptes rendus de 1' Association 

 Franeaise pour I'Avancement des Science, Congres d' Auzers, 1893, pp. 1-5. 

 102837—26 16 



