The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-04-29

degrees. slowly at first and then with in
creasing rapidly until the wood is ground
| off and forms in a small heap at the end
! Of the groove he has so made. The groove
is about six inches long. Mr.. Darwin
found it difficult to make fire in this way,
| but al last succeeded The Samoan can
! get fire in forty seconds. and some can
make the wood burst into flames by this
| method.
| The fourth method of obtaining FIRE
| that Of Striking" a lights one faml iar,
! in a degree, to all. Before steel was OBJ
| tainable, flint and pyrltes were used Eski-
! mos Of the Mackenzie river district use a
| fre-set composed of tinder-pocket,
| which contains of finder made of down
from the willow catkins mixed with char
coal. or soaked in gunpowder and water,
| a rough bar of flint, and a half sphere of
pyrites, evidently a round stone broken in
two for greater convenience.
The tinder-bag Is made of reindeer skin.
A little bag hanging from large one
contains finder to use in case that in the
larger one becomes accidentally useless
but the little bag also acts as a toggle 1t
is passed under the belt when the finder
bag is carried by the squaw, much as our
women wear their natelaine bags. THE
cover of the bag is an oblong pad stuffed
with deer hair. The pad is held on the
fore-finger under the pyrites to protect the
hand when ii spark is being struck off into
the finder in the bag.
With the iron age came the use of the
flint and steel and the most ancient speci-
mems of these fire-making tools are so
nearly like those found in many an old
garnet to-day that description seems I'M
necessary
The Chinese strike-a-hghts show a very
ingenious way of combining the steel with
a pouch in which to carry the flint and
finder. In Tibet the pouches are often
deliberately trimmed with ncrusted silver
set with costly jewels The Japanese still
use flint and steel. Their tinder-boxes have
two compartments. The smaller one is for
the finder and has a damper. The larger
one is for the flint and steel. They mount
the steel in wood Until matches were in
vented the most convenient fre-making
tools in the world were those used in
Japan.
Our North American Indians were slow
to acknowledge civilized arts and methods
as superior to their own; but fire-making
with tlinI and steel appealed TO them at
once. and was promptly adopted. Buck
skin pouches were made in which to carry
the flint and steel. and hung from a bert
beside the tomahawk. They have many
curious beliefs concerning fire and its orr
gin The Alaskan Indians viii tell you that
Yeti" the Great Raven. who created man
and gave him all blessings, after ohtaiu~
ing light and fresh water, stole a bu1n-
ing brand from fire island (volcanoj st
the sea, and started back to earth holding
it in his beak But the Journey was so
long that the brand burned shorter and
shorter. Swiftly and more swiftly Yeti
piled his magic wings; but the brand burn
ed his bill, and then dropped to the ground
and scattered in all directions. And be-
cause the divine fire dropped from YeU's
beak entered into every rock and every
dry bit of wood lying on the surface OF the
earth, they say one can always call fire out
of the rocks by striking them with steel,
or out of wood by rubbing 1t with other
wood.
This is the Alaskan explanation of the
mystery known TO us as fire-making.