570 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
while in the other (fig. 6) a brass piece accurately fitting the bore of 
the tube is screwed on, and no packing is required. All these have 
cup-like depressions at the end of the plunger for holding the tinder. 
Mr. Bidwell’s specimens are all said to be English. It does not ap- 
pear likely that the practical everyday use of these fire pistons was 
at any time very general, and the tinder box easily held its own 
against them, but it is worthy of note that a certain practical value 
was recognized for them, and even in quite recent years they were 
reintroduced in France, and a pocket form was sold by tobacconists 
in Paris. In these (fig. 7) the cylinder is of white metal with wooden 
knob, the plunger is of hard wood with cupped end, and fixed to the 
side of the cylinder is a tubular holder for the common cord tinder. 
A specimen given me by Mr. Miller Christy works very satisfactorily 
with a really “ quick” form of tinder. Its reintroduction in western 
Europe was, no doubt, prompted rather by its peculiar interest as a 
scientific toy than by its being recognized as being of real practical 
importance. For ordinary purposes, as an appliance useful in every- 
day life, its death knell was sounded when the lucifer match became 
generally known. The latter, which has held its own unchallenged 
during the last seventy years or so, proved too strong and too se- 
verely practical a competitor, before which the time-honored tinder 
box, the fire piston, and the earlier chemical methods (‘ sulphuric- 
acid bottle,” “ phosphorus bottle,” “‘ promethian,” etc.) had to give 
way., | 
THE FIRE PISTON IN THE EAST. 
Interesting as is this fire-producing appliance as it occurs in west- 
ern Europe in the form of a scientific instrument, and, to a limited 
extent, as a machine for domestic use, from an ethnological point of 
view, the interest of the fire piston centers mainly upon its occur- 
rence in the east in an environment of relatively low culture. The 
problem is to ascertain whether this peculiar and very specialized 
method of fire production was introduced into the oriental regions 
from Europe, or whether it was invented independently by the little- 
civilized peoples among whom it is found as an appliance of prac- 
tical everyday use. Either theory is beset with difficulties, which are 
likely to remain unsolved in the absence of early records. I shall 
revert later to the consideration of this question, and will now deal 
with the geographical distribution and varieties of the fire piston 
in oriental regions. Briefly stated, it may be said that the range 
of this instrument extends sporadically over a wide area from north- 
ern Burma and Siam through the Malay Peninsula and the Malayan 
Archipelago to its eastern limits in the islands of Luzon and Min- 
danao in the Philippines, 
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