FIRE, COOKING, AND VESSELS. 253 



witli this, took a brancb. of the tree and produced fire from it, 

 and thence this great personage was called Suy-jin."^ The 

 friction-apparatus itself, apparently of the kind spoken of here 

 as the fire-drill, is mentioned in Morrison's Chinese Diction- 

 ary. " Suij, an instrument to obtain fire. A speculum for ob- 

 taining fire from the sun is called suy or kin-suy. Muh-suy, an 

 utensil to procure fire from wood by rotatory friction. Siiy- 

 jin-she, the first person who procured fire for the use of man." 

 The very existence of a Chinese name for the fire-drill shows 

 that it is, or has been, in use in the country. 



The absence of evidence relating to fire-making in the Bi- 

 ble is remarkable. If, indeed, the following passage from the 

 cosmogony of Sanchoniathon be founded on a Phoenician le- 

 gend, it preserves a record of the use of the fire-stick among 

 the Semitic race. " They say that from the wind Kolpia, and 

 his wife Baan, which is interpreted Night, there were born 

 mortal men, called ^on and Protogonos ; and ^on found how 

 to get food from trees. And those born from them were called 

 Genos and Genea, and they inhabited Phoenicia. . . . More- 

 over, they say that, again, from Genos, son of ^on and Proto- 

 gonos, there were born mortal children, whose names were 

 Phos, Pur, and Phlox (Light, Fire, and Flame). These, they 

 say, found out how to make fire from the friction of pieces of 

 wood, and taught its use."" 



Thus, too, though direct history does not tell us that the 

 Finns and Lapps used the fire-drill before they had the flint 

 and steel, there is a passage safely preserving the memory of 

 its use in a Finnish poem, whose native metre is familiar to our 

 ears from its imitation in ' Hiawatha ; ' 



" Panu parka, Tuonen polka, 

 kirnusi tulisen kirnun, 

 sakeisin saihytteli, 

 pukemissa puhtaissa, 

 walkehissa waatteissa." 



" Panu, the poor son of Tuoni, 

 Churning fiercely at the fire- churn, 



1 Goguetj vol. iii. p. 321. See Kuhn, p. 28, etc. 

 * Euseb., Prsep. Evang. i. x. 



