THE FIRE PISTON—BALFOUR. 587 
large possessions as Dutch Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas, do 
not appear to have received the instrument. As to the French, who 
appear to have entertained a kindly feeling toward the fire piston 
and to have made fairly considerable use of it, they need hardly be 
considered as possible introducers, since the regions of geographical 
distribution of the fire piston in the east are mainly outside the sphere 
of their direct influence. 
It is certainly difficult to account for the wide eastern distribution 
of the fire piston and the development of local native varieties by 
the theory of introduction from Europe, which allows so short a time 
in which to develop the conditions which already obtained prior to 
1865. This is especially the case when we remember that such primi- 
tive and widely separated peoples as the Mois of Indo-China and 
the Indonesian peoples of Luzon in the Philippines are well ac- 
quainted with the manufacture and use of the instrument. These 
peoples have until recently been very little known to Europeans. 
It may be suggested that Europeans may have introduced the fire 
piston into some one or two districts only, and that the further 
dispersal was effected by transmission elsewhere through native 
agency. This would, however, have required a longer time than is 
available, as dispersal by this means is necessarily slow. 
It has frequently been suggested that the Chinese must have origi- 
nated and organized the dispersal of the fire piston in the east. It 
is a common practice to credit the Chinese with the invention of 
many strange things, but there is, unfortunately, no evidence what- 
ever that they even knew of the fire piston, except perhaps on the 
Burmese and Siamese frontiers. At least, as far as I know, there are 
no records or specimens which give evidence of such knowledge on 
their part. 
The geographical distribution of the fire piston in the Siamese 
Malay states and the Malayan regions of the peninsula has caused 
some of the distinguished local experts to believe that the instrument 
is rather Siamese than Malayan in origin, as far as that region is 
concerned. This theory would perhaps account for its northeasterly 
and northwesterly dispersal among the Mois, the Shans, and the Ka- 
chins. It is possible that the Malays may have borrowed it from the 
Siamese. Be this as it may, the Malays have certainly acted, perhaps 
not as the sole, but at any rate as the main, dispersers of the fire piston 
over the islands of the East Indian Archipelago, from Sumatra to the 
Philippines. Wherever in this region the fire piston is found—even 
though it be in the hands of and manufactured by more primitive 
peoples—the influence of Malayan culture is also observable, and the 
instrument is not found in districts which are remote from Malayan 
contact. It is even possible that the Malays are the actual originators 
and that the Siamese may have borrowed the idea from them. Or the 
