Nov. 5, 1915. 
Bees LORY OF FIRE 
~ 
ODAY the world in which we live 
is a veritable paradise, to which 
each day’s advance brings a new de- 
velopment for our betterment, educa- 
tion, and comfort; it might seem we 
were becoming too civilized as com- 
pared to our rugged and uncultured 
forebears, who lived and_ prospered 
without the luxuries we have come 19 
ReedeeOne Or man’s earliest and 
most important discoveries was fire, 
the story of the finding, the gaining 
of knowledge, and the preservation 
of which is uniquely shown by a col- 
lection of objects and implements as- 
sembled and arranged by the Nation- 
al Museum, and now on display in 
the Smithsonian Exhibit at the Pan- 
ama-Pacific International Exposition. 
_ To appreciate the true value of fire 
femtne world, it is necessary to 
imagine an existence without fire, and 
light and heat, its accompanying fea- 
tures, as well as the industries, arts, 
and sciences dependent thereon. We 
would at once drop back to the 
stone age in our daily occupations 
and social life; our houses would be 
unlit, at night, our food uncooked, 
our communication with the rest of 
the world would be broken, and only 
by foot or on the back of domesticat- 
ed animals could we journey abroad. 
Not only this, but we would be unable 
to renew our existing stock of tools, 
apparatus, supplies, and everything 
made or fashioned by the assistance 
of heat, and thus we would be car- 
ried back to the early days of the 
world by the loss of fire alone. 
No one really knows just how 
_ primitive man came to discover fire, 
and utilize it; but at some far distant 
period, he certainly found that fire 
existed in nature, derived from the 
volcano, lightning, or friction, though 
he seems to have made no use of it 
for a long time. He may have come 
tc know that it could be transported 
or transferred through having seen 
red hot volcanic rock ignite dry grass, 
leaves, or.wood, or possibly by hav- 
ing seen the lightning strike and set 
mrestona tree. He may even have 
secured a light, as it were, from one 
of these sources, and carefully prc- 
served it for years, by keeping some- 
thing constantly burning. It became 
invaluable to him, since it cooked his 
food, and kept him warm, as well as 
gave him light at night. But it was 
at least a long time before he realized 
that he could himself create or make 
fire by rubbing two dry sticks to- 
gether. Once discovered, this pro- 
cess alone was used for centuries, be- 
fore it was found that by knogking 
NG GIs LOR Ber BROKE 7 FE 
flint and pyrites together, sparks 
capable of igniting tinder might be 
struck. Somewhat later, in the Iron 
Age, flint and steel were substituted, 
a common method employed in fire 
making until late in the seventeenth 
century. A little later there came 
chemical inventions which eventually 
gave way to matches. 
The use of fire also marks the be- 
ginning of artificial illumination, de- 
veloped successively through the bon- 
fire, torch, lamps, and candles, to the 
gas and electric lights of today. To fire 
as well, the beginnings of metallurgy, 
ceramics, and other arts which have 
attained a high degree of perfection in 
this century, owe their origin. 
The specimens exhibited by the U. 
S. Natural Museum show the imple- 
ments used in making fire by the fric- 
tion of wood, percussion of minerals, 
compression of air, focusing the sun's 
tays, and through chemistry, and 
terminate with the electric lighter. 
The series itself is preceded by three 
drawings; the first illustrating vol- 
canic action, the hot lava setting fire 
to a forest; the second shows a forest 
fire ignited by the lightning; while 
the third illustrates the primitive 
camp-fire and the method of convey- 
ing fire from one camp to another. 
The first two being presumptive na- 
tural sources from which man may 
have obtained fire before he knew a 
nanner for kindling it himself. 
The progressive steps of man’s 
acquaintance with fire are three: the 
knowledge of fire, the means of utili- 
zing it, and the means of preserving 
iit. The last step, which is one of the 
most important in the history of 
man’s development, is fully illustrat- 
ed by the series of different apparatus 
and materials. Many improvements 
have followed the first steps in man’s 
progress, and each method has been 
subject to various modifications by 
different people. What was probably 
the first method, that of rubbing two 
sticks together with the hands, was 
improved by reciprocating motion 
effects; the twirling of one stick held 
vertically between the palms and rest- 
ing on a second lying horizontally oa 
the ground, then by the addition of a 
bow and socket, followed -by the 
weighted stick as in the pump drill, 
and finally the machine with cog 
wheels and crank as employed in 
Soudan. The Indians of the two 
Americas, Ainos, Somalis, Kaffirs, 
Veddahs, and Australians, were gen- 
erally exponents of the simple two- 
stick method. The four-piece appar- 
atus was used by the Eskimo, Hin-. 
doos, Dyaks, and some Athapascan 
tribes, and the weighted drill was em- 
abe 
ployed by the Iroquois and the Chuk- 
chis. 
The second method is that of saw- 
ing, and the apparatus comprised a 
thin strip of bamboo which was 
drawn edgewise across a section of 
the same wood in which a corres- 
ponding groove had been cut across 
the grain, the sparks created falling 
through the groove upon some in- 
flammable substance lying beneath the 
large section. This was also accom- 
plished by drawing a thong of rattan 
across a stick in which a longitudinal 
slot had been cut partway through, 
the sparks igniting some _ tinder 
placed in the slot. These methods 
were used by the Malays and Bur- 
mese, as well as some other races. 
Fire was also made by plowing, 
that is, a thin piece of wood was 
forced along a narrow slot cut length- 
wise in a larger piece until the fric- 
tion ignited the tinder. This system 
was evolved by the Polynesians, the 
Australians, and the Papuans. 
Another, and more advanced sys- 
tem, of striking fire was by percus- 
sion, first employed through the use 
of flint and iron pyrites, or stone con- 
taining iron, by the Eskimo and 
northern Indians, and later super- 
seded by flint and steel. 
The collections of the Museum, 
which include several examples of 
different forms of apparatus under 
the above subdivisions, are supple- 
mented by examples of more recent 
devices. One is a tinder pistol, an 
English adaptation of the flint and 
steel in a gunlock, which threw 
sparks on some tinder. What was 
known as a fire piston was made hy 
the Siamese and Malays. This com- 
prised a cylinder of wood with a 
closely fitting wooden piston, a smart 
thrust of which kindled tinder within 
the cylinder. A lens for focusing the 
sunlight on tinder is shown as an ex- 
ample of a method first employed by 
the early Greeks for kindling a fire. 
Other apparatus includes what was 
known in Germany in 1824 as a 
hydrogen lamp, the hydrogen, being 
derived from the action of acid on 
zinc, was made to play on spong' 
platinum, thus causing it to glow; a 
match light box of about 1809, from 
Vienna, consisting of a bottle of sul- 
phuric acid into which splints tipped 
with chlorate of potash and sugar 
were dipped, and matches of sulphur 
and phosphorous, as well as an elec- 
tric gas lighter. The latter exhibits 
bring the series up-to-date and cover 
in a general way the development ot 
fire making from the earliest days to 
modern times.—(Article supplied by 
Smithsonian Institution, Washington.) 
