THE FIRE PISTON.2 
By Henry BALFour, M. A., 
Curator of the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford. 
The fire piston appears to have been but little known to ethnogra- 
phers at the time when Dr. E. B. Tylor published his Researches into 
the Early History of Mankind,’ which contains the classical and 
fascinating chapter upon fire making, one of the pioneering articles 
upon this interesting subject. Doctor Tylor refers (p. 246) very 
briefly to this instrument as follows: “ There is a well-known scien- 
tific toy made to show that heat is generated by compression of air. 
It consists of a brass tube closed at one end, into which a packed pis- 
ton is sharply forced down, thus igniting a piece of tinder within the 
tube. It is curious to find an apparatus on this principle (made in 
hard wood, ivory, etc.) used as a practical means of making fire in 
Birmah, and even among the Malays.” If, taking this short sentence 
as my text, I make an attempt to bring together the available infor- 
mation regarding this peculiar fire-producing appliance, I trust that 
I may, however inadequately, be offering as my contribution to this 
volume a subject which at least has the sympathy of the honored and 
veteran anthropologist, to whom the book is dedicated.“ Doctor 
Tylor’s reference to the fire piston contains two statements, (1) that 
it is a well-known scientific toy, (2) that it is a useful appliance in 
certain eastern regions. I may conveniently divide my subject in a 
similar fashion and deal firstly with the “ scientific toy ” and its 
practical descendants as they exist or have existed in civilized Europe, 
and secondly with the “ useful appliance ” as it is found amid an en- 
vironment of lower culture in the East. An interesting ethnological 
problem is involved, one whose solution is somewhat baftling. 
@Reprinted, by permission of the author and the delegates of the Claren- 
don Press, Oxford, from Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett 
Tylor in honor of his 75th birthday, Oct. 2, 1907. 
> London, 1878. 
¢ Edward Burnett Tylor. 
