GRAND DISCOVERIES OF LIFE 
13 
but it is scarcely possible to imagine his being able to exist with¬ 
out it, so large a function does it play in his social and industrial 
activities. 
No tribe of mankind is known which is not acquianted with the 
use of fire. From time beyond history man is recorded as using 
fire with which to cook his food and minister to his comfort 
against the exegencies of the elements. It is not probable that 
the unfathomable depths of prehistoric antiquity will ever reveal 
how first man discovered fire, when he first came to enjoy its 
warmth, or when he first learned to subdue it to serve his needs. 
No matter how remote in the distant past there is no period 
from which traces of human existence have been obtained which 
does not show evidence of the acquaintance of man with fire. 
In the oldest archaeological sites of Europe, along with the re¬ 
mains of the cave-man, there are found flints that have been 
cracked by fire, fragments of charcoal, and charred bones which 
have been split for the marrow. Yet it must be supposed that 
there was a time when the primeval human family knew not fire. 
This is indeed confirmed by the traditions of the ancients, Egyp¬ 
tians, Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, Chinese and many other 
nations alike. 
No race of savages appears really to have been found so de¬ 
graded as to be entirely without fire. Most savage tribes have 
devised some form of fire-making apparatus, notwithstanding the 
fact that some are so low in the scale that their mastery of fire 
has not gone beyond the finding of means to keep the smouldering 
spark alive. And there are a few tribes which cannot relight 
their fires when once they are extinguished. 
That the early employment of fire was accounted marvelous 
is manifest from the host of myths and legendary traditions which 
are found among almost every people, regarding the way in which 
it was either bestowed upon man by the gods, or wrestled from its 
jealous guardian dieties by the heroic deed or cunning strategy 
of some glorified ancestor. The numerous forms of fire-worship 
prove how important was the conquest of fire to primitive civiliza¬ 
tions. 
Through the use of fire winter is turned into summer, night is 
converted into day,-and man’s power of doing it immeasurably 
multiplied. Judged by its fruits as well as by its broadening 
