2 TKU REAL 'TIES OF MODERN SCIENCE 



which would lead him to push a new stick into the 

 smoldering embers. 



No one knows how man first learned to keep fire 

 alive and how ages later he learned to make a fire. 

 Many students of the relics of man in earlier geologic 

 ages think that he first saw fire in the dry seasons 

 when lightning had started it. Perhaps after a brush 

 fire had been checked by a rain, some man, more adven- 

 turous and curious than his fellows, approached and 

 picked up a burning stick. The man who was the 

 first in the world to pick up a brand was not only 

 brave but an important discoverer, in showing that 

 fire could be safely handled. Nobody told him that 

 although wood is combustible and if heated to the 

 proper temperature will ignite with air and burn, still, 

 when below this temperature, it is a very good heat 

 insulator. The experimental fact preceded by ages 

 its scientific description. 



Probably other members of this discoverer's family 

 imitated him, just as small boys around their first 

 bonfire will soon follow the lead of the older boy who 

 brandishes a flaming stick. From this time familiarity 

 with fire increased, although the first fire-handlers 

 may have died before they again saw fire, leaving the 

 discovery to be remade by a later generation. 



Perhaps, chilled by the rain which checked the 

 spreading bush fire, our man may have discovered 

 the pleasantness of warming his own body beside the 

 embers. He may also have tasted roasted meat for 

 the first time, driven by hunger to try the half burned 

 body of some small animal which was caught in the 

 fire. If so, it was a long time before he ate cooked 



