572 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 188^. 



Mr. Thomas VViUou calls my attentioa to a discovery of a pyrites 

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

 in Brittany. The piece bore traces of use. Mr. Wilson thinks that 

 the curved flakes of fliut like the one figured, found so numerousl\ , 

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

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

 iu 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 Vezere, Perigord, mentioned 

 in Reliquae Aquitanictie, page 248. This is supposed to have been a 

 strike-a-light. 



Prof. W. B. Dawkins thinks that— 



Iu all probability the Cave-mau obtaiued fire by the friction of one piece of hard 

 wood upon another, as is now the custom among many savage tribes. Sometimes, 

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

 en Belgiqne, second editiou, page 153), he may haveobtaiued a liglit by the friction of a 

 bit of fliut against a piece of iron pyrites, as is usual with the Eskimos of the present 

 day.* 



Mr. Dawkins also says that fire was obtained in the Bronze Age by 

 striking a flint flake against a piece of pyrites, sometimes found together 

 in the tumuli. He figures a strike-a-light from Seven Barrows, Lam- 

 bourne, Berks, England, an outline of which is reproduced here for com- 

 parison with the one from Fort Simpson, British Colurabii (fig. -llrt 

 and b). Pyrites has been found iu a kitchen-midden at Ventnor, in 

 connection with Roman pottery t Chambers's Encyclo[)ieilia, article, 

 Pyrites,! is authority for the statement that pyrites was used in kind- 

 ling powder iu the pans of muskets before the gun fliut was introduced. 



It is thus seen that this art has a high antiquity, and that on its 

 ancient areas its use comes down nearly to the present day, the flint 

 and steel being its modern or allied form. 



In North America this art is distributed among the more northerly 

 ranging Indian tribes, and the Eskimo of some parts. Its use was and 

 is yet quite prevalent among the Indians of the Athapascan (formerly 

 Tinne) stock of the north. By specimens in the Museum, and notes of 

 explorers, it is found to range from north of Dixon's Sound to Labrador, 

 the following localities being represented, viz: Stikiu^ River, Sitka, 

 Aleutian Islands, Kotzebue Sound, Point Barrow, the Mackenzie River 

 district, at Fort Simpson, and probably Hershel Island, Pelly Bay, Mel- 

 ville Peninsula, Smith Sound, and Labrador. The Canadian and Algon- 

 quins strike two pieces of pyrites {pierres de mitie) together over an 

 eagle's thigh, dried with its down, and serving instead of tinder.|| From 



*Dawkin8.— Early Man in Britain. Loudon, p. 210. 

 \ Loc. cit., p. 258. 



i J. Authrop. lust. Great Britain and Ireland, vii, p. 8.'}. 



II Lafitau. — Moeurs des Sauvages Ameri([aains. p. 272. An earlier account is found 

 in Le Jeuue, Relation de 1634, p. 24. Quebec, 18.")8. 



