FIRE, COOKINGj AND VESSELS. 



237 



Radack groups ;^ but I have never found it distinctly mentioned 

 out of this region of the world. Even should it be known 

 elsewhere, its isolation in a particular district round which 

 other processes prevail would still be an ethnographical fact 

 of some importance. It is to be noticed also, that it comes 

 much nearer than " fire-drilling " to the yet simpler process of 

 striking fire with two pieces of split bamboo. The siliceous coat- 

 ing of this cane makes it possible to strike fire with it ; and this 

 is done in Eastern Asia, and also in the great Malay islands of 

 Borneo and Sumatra," at or near the source whence the higher 

 Polynesian race is supposed to have spread over the Pacific 

 Islands. But it would appear that the striking fire with bam- 

 boo, simple as it seems, is for some reason not so convenient 

 as the use of the more complex friction-apparatus ; for Marsden 

 seems to consider the fire-drill as the regular native instrument 

 in Sumatra, though he says he has also seen the same efiect 

 produced more simply by rubbing one bit of bamboo, with a 

 sharp edge, across another. 



By a change in the way of work- 

 ing, the " stick-and-groove " be- 

 comes the "fire-drill." I have 

 been obliged to coin both these 

 terms, no suitable ones being 

 forthcoming. The fire-drill, in 

 its simplest form, is represented 

 in Fig. 21 ; and Captain Cook's 

 remarks on it and its use, among 

 the native tribes of Australia, 

 may serve also as a general de- 

 scription of it all over the world, 

 setting aside minor details. "^They ^ig- 21- 



produce fire with great facility, and spread it in a wonderful 



> Darwin, in Narr., vol. iii. p. 488. Polack, vol. i. p. 165. Tyerman and Bennet, 

 vol. i. p. 141. Busclimann, 'lies Marquises,' etc.; Berlin, 1843, pp. 140-1. 

 Mariner, Vocab., s.m. tolo-afi, tolonga, cownatoo. S. S. Farmer, 'Tonga,' etc.; 

 London, 1855, p. 138. Walpole, 'Four Years in the Pacific;' London, 1849, 

 vol. ii. p. 377. Kotzebue, vol. iii. p. 154. 



2 Bowring, vol. i. p. 206. St. .John, vol. i. p. 137. Marsden, p. 60. See 

 Tennent, ' Ceylon,' vol. i. p. 105. 



