492 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



It bettered his rough food. It warded off the beasts by night. 

 It aided in the preparation of his crude tools — the shaping 

 of his club and spear, the splitting of his flints, etc. 

 It hollowed the log that was thereby transformed into a 

 canoe — his first conveyance. 



The physical comfort of the fireside glow man 

 shares with his animal friends; he differs from them in the 

 foresight that anticipates future needs, and provides the 

 means to gratify them. Even with all our modern im- 

 provements in heating appliances we cling to the open blaze 

 with a love that is bom of primeval experience. 



The use of fire for cooking may have been first learned 

 by the accidental discovery of the greater palatability of 

 flesh or of tubers that had been roasted in wild fires. Doubt- 

 less the earliest modes of cooking were roasting over the 

 open fire and roasting in hot ashes. Water was first heated 

 for the boiling of food by the addition of hot stones to the 

 vessels containing it; it is still so heated by certain North 

 American Indians. The earliest water vessels were shells, 

 as of cocoanut or gourd, and the crania of vanquished ene- 

 mies; and the boiling of food over a fire had to wait on the 

 invention of fire-proof vessels. The first of these were 

 earthen vessels, which were later succeeded by pots of 

 bronze and of iron. 



2. Unwritten human history 



The sources of cur knowledge of the evolution of the 

 human species are the three "great historical documents" 

 already familiar; palaeontology, phylogeny and ontog- 

 eny; but for these as applied to man there are special 

 names to be used. There is in the case of men and 

 animals an actual record of the past, incomplete but indis- 

 putable. It is preserved in the bones and teeth and armor 

 of animals and its study is known as palaeontology. It is 



