FIREj COOKING, AND VESSELS. 



243 



To substitute for the mere thong or cord a bow with a loose 

 string, is a still further improvement, for one hand now does 

 the work of two in driving the spindle. The centre, in which 

 its end turns, may be held down with the other hand, or (as is 

 very usual) set against the breast of the operator. The bow- 

 drill, thus formed, is a most ancient and well-known boring 

 instrument, familiar to the artisan in modern Europe as it was 

 in ancient Egypt. The only place where I have found any notice 

 of its use for fire-making is 

 among the North American 

 Indians. The plate from 

 which Fig. 26 is taken is 

 marked by Schoolcraft as 

 representing the apparatus 

 used by the Sioux, or Da- 

 cotahs.^ If they really used 

 it, they may possibly have 

 caught the idea from the 

 European bow-drill. 



Fig. 26. 



Lastly, there is a curious little contrivance, known to English 

 toolmakers as the " pump -drill," from its being worked up 

 and down like a pump. That kept in the London tool-shops 

 is all of metal, expanding into a bulb instead of the disk 

 shown in Fig. 27, which represents the kind used in Switzer- 

 land, consisting of a wooden spindle, armed with a steel point, 

 and weighted with a wooden disk. A string is made fast to 

 the ends of the cross-piece, and in the middle to the top of the 

 spindle. As the hand brings the cross-piece down it unwinds 

 the cord, driving the spindle round; as the hand is lifted 

 again, the disk, acting as a fly-wheel, runs on and re-winds 

 the cord, and so on. Holtzappfel says that the pump-drill is 

 as well known among the Oriental nations as the breast-drill, 

 though it is little used in England except by china and glass 

 menders.^ Perhaps it may have found its way over from Asia 



• Schoolcraft, part iii. pi. 28. But the description, p. 228, does not correspond, 

 being that of the simple hand fire-drill, and the accompanying figure, under which 

 " Iroquois " is written, is wrongly d'-awn. 



" Holtzappfel, ' Turning and Mechanical Manipulation ; ' London, 1856, vol. ii. 

 p. 557. 



R 2 



