DEMONSTRATION ON FIRE-MAKING APPLIANCES. 5I 



tinder, the other end terminates in a flat knob. When the box is held in 

 one hand, the piston in position is driven by a smart blow on the knob by 

 the other hand ; this of course compresses the air in the cavity in the box, 

 and great heat is suddenly generated. By withdrawing the rod quickly the 

 heated tinder is brought into contact with the oxygen of the air outside, and 

 it ignites, or should do under favourable conditions. 



We now come to the Percussion Method, by which we mean the general 

 use of flint and steel, with their many and varied forms and ramifications. 



For the earliest examples of the Flint-and-Steel we must go back to the 

 Stone-age where flint and iron pyrites took the place of the more modern 

 form ; indeed, I have heard of cases where iron pyrites has been used for 

 getting fire even during the present century. In different countries we get 

 variation in the forms of the steels, and various silicate stones taking the place 

 of the flint. The box or receptacle for the tinder and the flint and stone also 

 vary geographically, as also does the tinder used to arrest and hold the 

 precious spark. 



I will now describe a few of these from various parts of the world, taking 

 it for granted that we all know that this method of getting fire is simply that 

 the hard flint, or allied stone, by being brought sharply into contact with a 

 piece of soft steel or iron, strikes off a particle of the latter, which being 

 heated by the force employed burns in the oxygen of the air, and that this 

 spark falling upon very dry tinder ignites it, and thus furnishes the desired 

 fire. 



Some of the most primitive of these forms in my collection are curiously 

 enough from India. In one case the steel is a rough fragment of iron, the 

 flint a rude flake of agate, the tinder is the silky lining of the seed vessel of 

 the Bombix tnalabaricus, and the tinder box is the hallowed fruit of the 

 Borassus Fan-palm. 



In another the tinder box is actually made from the coccoon of the 

 Tussore silk moth, and the flint is from an old "Brown Bess" gun of the 

 Mutiny times. In Northern India chalcedony in rough lumps does duty for 

 the flints in company with almost impossible pieces of hard white iron. 



Several examples from Thibet show the typical pouch-shaped tinder case 

 having the steel fixed as a rim to the lower edge. This form is common in 

 Thibet, Persia, China, Kashmir, and North Africa, and we actually have a 

 modification of it from Norway, Germany, and our own country, England. 



From the Punjab, India, we have the native's pipe and tobacco, with 

 flint and steel and tinder, all together in a rough canvas bag, while in the 

 West Indies we find a cow's horn doing duty as a tinder box. 



To come down to modern civilized times we have from Germany and 

 Scandinavia, tinder boxes cut from solid blocks of wood ; their English 

 representatives were of joi7ied wood. In Holland, to-day, tinder boxes and 

 flints and steel are sold in the streets for a few centas each : the former are 

 small rounded tubular boxes of copper or brass, but are not to be compared 

 with their artistic ancestors of the 17th century, of which we have several 

 before us. We also have many forms of pocket tinder boxes, some being of 

 silver, having the steel attached to one of the outside edges. 



The typical English tinder-box is of circular form, made of thin iron, 

 sometimes japanned, more often not. The tinder, which was of some charred 



