FIRE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTURE 249 



because of the lack of oils to burn in them. Shortly, however, Roman 

 engineering and agricultural skill applied to the fields and the ancient 

 olive mills and presses furnished an adequate supply for food and 

 light. Numerous examples of early mills and presses have been 

 uncovered in the Mediterranean area and have been well described 

 by MM. Clastrier, Guebhard, and Goby.^' These mills and presses 

 were suitable for the expression of oil. not only from olives, for which 

 they were probably chiefly used, but for oily seeds of various kinds. 



In Syi'ia at the present time ohves are crushed between two large 

 stones turned aromid by a pole. Warm water is poured over the 

 mass, the oil rises to the top, the woman takes large double handful 

 and with a skillful motion transfers it to a strainer by her side.^^ 



For further notes on illuminants see Ethnography of the Lamp. 



LIGHT IN CULT 



Parallel with the fire cult a great body of cult has grown up around 

 light. Subtracted from the fire, supplied with sustenance and requir- 

 ing a different form of attention, the light becomes a thing apart 

 and takes up a round of inventions wliich have not culminated at this 

 day. 



The eternal contest of fight and darkness has been an age-long 

 experience to mankind. Out of this declaration of nature has evolved 

 the worship of fire as light, and at length the philosophy of Zoroas- 

 ter pitting fight and darkness as antagonistic elements named good 

 and evil. 



At some period also comparatively late in man's history the sim 

 as the greatest natural source of fight comes to be worshipped and a 

 vastly ramifying cult is established. Below these cults, which repre- 

 sent elaborate philosophies, are the observances of the folk, many of 

 them perhaps inheritances from more ancient times or normal growths 

 in indigenous religious ideas. Some instances of these customs maybe 

 given and the frequent parallelism with fire customs noted. In some 

 cases it is difficult to separate the ideas of light and fire, but in most 

 cases there is a clear differentiation, as in early times there could easil}' 

 have been knowledge of the two functions of fire. It has even been 

 conjectured that the primary usefulness of fire was for the light-giv- 

 ing quality, a theory which has much weight. 



There was considerable advance in reasoning before the sun and 

 fire were correlated, and there was never a generalization on the con- 

 nection of the fight of the stars, moon, and other natural luminous 

 phenomena before the advent of exact science. It appears, there- 

 fore, that light was formerly inseparable from fire, and that with the 



" Presses et Moulins a Iluile Primitifs, Bull. Soc. Prehist. de France, January, ItlO, pp. 1-16. 

 M Woman's Work for Woman, January, 1888, p. 16. 



