4 PROCEEDINGS OP THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 73 



common property and the esoteric sides remained in the care of reH- 

 gious organizations. 



The thought on the origin of fire making has tended to vision the 

 human need, and to consider the need supplied by an inventor, much 

 as wonder-working inventions are brought out nowadays. It will be 

 shown that nothing could be farther from the facts. In considering 

 the difficulties which confronted the inventor of the wood-friction 

 fire-making apparatus it is pointed out that the proper wood in proper 

 condition must be found. All advanced Boy Scouts will subscribe 

 to this. Evidently the wood was not selected by the early experi- 

 menters before they knew what was to be done with it. Again, the 

 trap for the fire is a slot or channel cut in the horizontal piece, termed 

 the "hearth." This slot is, advisedly, a great discovery. Tinder of 

 a suitable kind in which the spark may be nourished must be found, 

 and this is no small task. Finally the little coal of fire can be brought 

 to a blaze only with great skill and a knowledge of a number of things. 

 These are the chief matters of difficulty connected with the invention 

 of fire making brought out in actual experiment, but there are other 

 minor steps in the process which are seemingly inconsequential yet 

 are vital to efficiency. 



It is necessary, then, to vision a long preliminary period during 

 which man gained a growing acquaintance with the properties of 

 various substances which were immediately useful to him in various 

 ways. He knew from the first fire that wood was the fuel which 

 burned on his primitive hearth. He may have thought that fire ate 

 wood, but the chief lesson was that wood burned. Other associations 

 of wood with fire may have come from work with this substance. 

 Friction is a common experience and handling wood or working in 

 wood might give to keen perceptions an odor, a vapor of smoke, sug- 

 gesting that there was fire present. Unconsciously perhaps these 

 observations led to more knowledge and gradually to an awakening 

 to a combination of these experiences into something useful, and the 

 fire drill, let us say, followed. Why the drill was the form the fire 

 kindler took is not difficult to imagine. The drill is an ancient and 

 primitive tool supplying the need for piercing holes in various mate- 

 rials. It is the result of diverse means employed to pierce holes, such 

 as scraping, punching, grinding, cutting, and breaking, the processes 

 described being variants of the making of holes. From these experi- 

 ences came finally the drill more especially as a tool for piercing hard 

 substances requiring abrasive processes. Thus when the culmination 

 of the protracted experiments was about to be reached there was a 

 drill which could be adapted to the service of fire making. The 

 Hindu fire-origin myth most practically states that the carpenter 

 with his drill first elicited the divine fire. In its present state the 

 Aryan Hindu myth places the origin of artificial fire making at a 



