WOMEN AS INVENTORS 339 



cultivate certain food plants and trees than to depend on 

 them for nourishment in the wild state. This was par- 

 ticularly true in the case of such useful and widely dis- 

 tributed species as wheat, rice, maize, the yam, potato, 

 banana and cassava. 



At first most of these food products were used in the 

 raw state, but woman's quick inventive genius was not 

 long in making one of the most important and far-reaching 

 discoveries a method for producing fire. In a certain 

 sense this was the greatest discovery ever made, and the 

 Greeks showed their appreciation of the value of it by 

 asserting that fire was stolen from heaven. Considering its 

 multifarious uses in heating and cooking, thereby im- 

 mensely adding to the comfort and well-being of primitive 

 man, we are not surprised that in certain parts of the 

 world fire has always been considered something sacred, 

 and that the old Romans instituted Vestal Virgins, and 

 the ancient Peruvians Virgins of the Sun, to preserve this 

 precious element and have it ever ready when required for 

 sacrifice or for any of their various liturgical functions. 

 If any one ever deserved a ' ' monument more durable than 

 bronze," it was the woman who, "on the edge of time," 

 first drew the Promethean spark from a piece of pyrites by 

 striking it with flint or produced it by the friction of two 

 pieces of wood. 



After building a home and establishing in it a fireplace 

 for the preparation of food, woman's next concern was to 

 secure more raiment than was afforded by the traditional 

 fig leaf. This she found in the bark of certain trees, in 

 the fiber of hemp and cotton and in the wool of sheep 

 and goats. "With these and her distaff she spun thread, 

 and from the thread thus obtained she was by means of 

 her primitive loom likewise her invention able to pro- 

 vide all kinds of textile fabrics for clothing for herself 

 and family. 



But there was much more to invent before the home of 



