JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY Of BENGAL. 



New iSeries. 



Vol. XII.— 1916 



♦ 



i« The Invention of Fire. 



By H. G. Graves, Controller of Patents, India 



66 When this invention was made, tell me, what was then the state- 

 of the Art. what was then known ?" 



In a popular lecture, recently delivered at the Indian 

 Museum, Calcutta, Mr. J. Coggin Brown dealt with man in the 

 ages of stone implements and his development in India through 

 roughly hewn and polished stones to the use of metal tools. 

 A classification of the various stages throughout the world, 

 going back through countless ages, led to the mention of one 

 great step in the progress of mankind — the invention of fire 

 perhaps somewhere between fifty and a hundred million years 

 ago. Necessarily no exact date can be given ; only an imagin- 

 ative approximation is possible on the available, but all too 

 scanty, data. The geologist, who has to deal with periods of 

 time involving millions of years, frankly says that some mil- 

 lions more or less in his estimate are of less account than a 

 hundred years or so in the date of an event determined by a 

 historian in early historic times. In turn, his errors are com- 

 mensurable with a week sooner or later for some obscure hap- 

 pening a century or two ago. 



The invention of fire, or the discovery of fire, call it what 

 you will, what has it not meant to the progress of mankind ? 

 Yet it must not be thought of as one great outburst of pro- 

 gress. Rather it should be considered as a gradual develop- 

 ment, progressing by slow and uncertain stages, many times 

 forgotten and rediscovered in those days of primitive know- 



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