74 V. Ball — On the Nature and use of Fire Sticks. [April, 



So anomalous are the characters of the genus that Lindley long ago pro- 

 posed a special class, the Dictyogens, for its reception. Among its anoma- 

 lous characters I do not know whether its woody structure has been 

 sj)ecially noticed. 



There is every probability that this Smilax was the so-called Vine which 

 was known to the ancients as affording the wood with which fire was pro- 

 duced. 



Dr. Feistmantel has called my attention to a passage in Sir Emerson 

 Tennent's ' Ceylon' (Vol. II, p. 451) in which the Veddahs are described as 

 making fire in this way with the pieces of an arrow which they broke in 

 two for the purpose. 



Mr. Tawney referred to Professor Kuhn's ' Herabkunft des Feuers 

 und des Gottertranks', and mentioned that it appeared from passages quoted 

 by that writer from Greek and Latin authors, that the wood of certain 

 creepers was preferred for kindling fire by friction. Theophrastus states 

 that the lower of the two pieces of wood should be made of ivy, or of a 

 creeper named dOpayivrj, resembling the wild vine. Pliny also tells us 

 that eclera and vitis Silvestris, alia auam lahrusca, et ipsa ederce modo 

 arbor em seandens were preferred for the lower of the two fire-sticks, . or 

 7rvpda as they were called by the Greeks. 



It was therefore very interesting to observe that the fire-sticks exhi- 

 bited by Mr. Ball appeared to be made of the wood of a creeper, and a 

 creeper resembling in appearance the wild vine. Among the Greeks and 

 Romans the upper stick or borer was frequently made of laurel. But it is 

 also stated that both sticks were often of the same wood, and the wood of 

 the thorn, the ilex, and the linden seem also to have been used. Kuhn 

 points out that Greek, Roman, and Indian accounts represent the process of 

 attrition as -performed by the help of a thong, and not as Mr. Ball saw it, 

 with the hands alone. 



The following papers were read — 



1. On the Relations of Cloud and Rainfall to Temperature in India, 

 and on the opposite variations of Density in the Higher and Lower Atmo- 

 spheric Strata. By H. F. Blanford, F. R. S., Meteorological Reporter to 

 the Government of India. 



(Abstract.) 



The paper treated of two subjects, which had been incidentally dis- 

 cussed in the author's official Report on the Meteorology of India in 1879, 



