ART. 14 FIRE-MAKING APPARATUS HOUGH 55 



Guinea specimens of the thong apparatus identical with the Palawan 

 set described and showing an interesting connection-survival. (PI. 9, 

 fig. 2, Cat. No. 326012; Mrs. E. Y. Miller; 11.5 in. (29.5 cm.).) 



IV. PERCUSSION 



1. Flint and pyrites. — The art of fire making by striking two stony 

 substances together was begun in the far past, having originated in 

 experiences connected with the working of stone. Since by striking 

 flint against flint no live spark can be gotten to start a fire, it is nec- 

 essary to infer that by striking two pieces of pyrites together or sub- 

 stituting for one piece a flint, a rather hot spark would be observed 

 to follow the impact. The pyrites strike-a-light was found in use in 

 a number of localities, which seems to indicate a survival of former 

 usage, while in other localities pyrites was used with flint, this arrange- 

 ment being more workmanlike, obviating the breaking of the fragile 

 pyrites. This ancestor of the flint and steel was in use in the Euro, 

 pean neolithic age and remained current far into the iron age, being 

 used on guns after the invention of gunpowder. 



Presumably the neolithic equipment was a flint scraper, a lump of 

 iron pyrites, tinder, and a bag to contain them. Many of the scrapers 

 of the sort believed to have been those used in fire making are found 

 in European neolithic deposits, but pyrites rarely, as it tends to decay 

 rapidly. (Fig. 40a.) 



The workuig of the flint and pyrites in fire making was different 

 from that pursued with the flint and steel. The steel is struck on 

 the edge of the flint with a sharp scraping blow, while the neolithic 

 scraper was chopped on the surface of the pyrites somewhat as a 

 scraper is ordinarily used, shown in Figure 40. The pyrites lump, 

 therefore, being scraped around the sides assumed a cylindrical form. 

 (See fig. 42.) 



Dr. Thomas Wilson calls my attention to a discovery of a pyrites 

 nodule by M. Gaillard, in a flint workshop on the island of Guiberon 

 in Brittany. The piece bore traces of use. Doctor Wilson thinks 

 that the curved flakes of flint like the one figured, found so numerousl}^, 

 were used with pyrites as strike-a-lights. The comparative rarity of 

 pyrites is, perhaps, because it is easily decomposed and disintegrates 

 in unfavorable situations in a short time, so that the absence of pyrites 

 does not militate against the theory that it was used. A subcylindrical 

 nodule of pyrites 2^ inches long and bruised at one end was found 

 in the cave of Les Eyzies, in the Valley of V^z^re, Perigord, mentioned 

 in Reliquae Aquitanicae (p. 248). This is supposed to have been a 

 strike-a-light. 



Prof. W. B. Dawkins thinks that: 



In all probability the cave man obtained fire by the friction of one piece of 

 hard wood upon another, as is now the custom among many savage tribes. Some- 

 times, however, as in the Trou de Chaleux, quoted by M. Dupont (Le Temps 



