The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-14
SOME OLD WAYS
 OF FIRE MAKING How They Struck a Light in Primitive
 Times. STICKS, FLINT, STEEL First Practical Match Made Less Than a Gen.
 tury Ago.
STICKS, FLINT, STEEL

races of mankind to-day, ones i1nag- nation is sorely taxed to picture a time when the ready means of striking q
 light was not available. Yet 1t is cer- tain that such a time must have been liar back in the dim ages, when man roamed the Wilds and dwelt in holes and caves of the earth, scarcely more advanced in his domestic arrangements than the beasts of the field, writes Per- cy Collins in the Scientific American
 In what manner the value of fire as a servant first dawned upon the mind of man must ever remain mysterious, but at all times there must have been fires
 and great eonfiagrations kindled by
 natural means and entirely without the aid of man. Thus, the effect of the lightning stroke, of friction caused by
 falling rocks or the chafing of limbs
 and stems in the dense forests, or the
 volcanic overflow of the, smouldering
 furnaces within the globe would from
 time tb time display the properties of
 fire before the wondering eyes of prim-
 tive mankind.
 Probably man first feared fire, then began to worship 1t as a god terrible and onlipotent to destroy. Then, his fear departing from him, he began to employ fire to benefit himself and his tribe, using it for cooking and warmth.
 Notice that he did not at first make fire. He took it from Natures hand, so to speak, just as he gathered fruit from the forest boughs. There is direct
 evidence of this in the traditional his- tory of many races. For example, the T'lisngit family of Indians in south
 eastern Alaska say that the raven gave them fire and have an elaborate folk | lore descriptive of the bird and its flight through inky darkness bearing l the divine spark in,a a box. The fire was religously preserved and fed; and | members of the tribe took of 1t for | their domestic hearths. These and sim
 liar fables of the preservation of fire | in box, and It's being borne from tribe to tribe, or family to family, are reminiscent of the tlnduestionable fact I that man knew and employed fire long
 before he had discovered the means of making it for himself.
 1 Probably the first assays of man as i a fire maker were confined to the frie- | ton of stickn. There are just three
 ways in which one piece of wood may
 be rubbed upon another, namely, by
 moving with the grain, or 'ploughing"' 1 by moving across the grain, or saw ing,n and by twfrling pointed stick within a wooden socket, or drilling"
 All these methods have been used by carly man. Neither the first nor the
 second method, however, was brought l to q high state of perfection-or, to be | more precise, they both reached per- fection in rudlmentary form. The fire blow. which was widely used among l the Indo-Pacifc races and sporadlcally l in America, consists of two parts; first 1 a stout piece of thoroughly dried wood perhaps three feet long and two inches in diameter. which forms the hearth l or stationary part; second, smaller stick of the same kind of wood about foot long, cut wedge shape at it's 1 lower end, the edge forming very ob-
 tuse Angle. This constitutes the work ing part, or plough. It was rubbed vio- lently backward and forward on the
 stationary piece, cutting groove run hing with the grain for a distance of
 some four inches. Minutes shavings were thus detached, and in the hands of sklllful manipulator these were l soon heated above the point of ignition 1 Fire making by saving was Malay device and has never perhaps been sue.
 cessfully employed save in countries
 where the bamboo fiourishes, the req son being that bamboo is the only real 1y suitable wood. Two pieces are talk Ien, one with sharp edge, the other Y with a notch cut in it nearly but noi | quite severing the substance. After
 saving for a time the floor of the notch is completely pierced and the heated l particles fall below and ignite.
 l But the most important method of 1 primitive fire making is that of drill ing. Tn it's most simple form stick of 1 dry wood is twirled vertically between
 the hands upon very dry and partial l 1y deeayed lower platform. Itfsextreme- lly difficult to obtain fire in this way,
 as modern experimenters may prove 1 for themselves. Yet there it's a certain l knack about the operation, and this
 once being mastered smouldering wood 1 dust may be created with comparative I ly little labor. It is clear, however, that the fire drill could be made more ef- 1 fective and rapid in action in several ways. One such way calls for the CO., l operation of two individuals, one oi | whom supports the vertical spindle by means of a socketed rod, while the oth-
 CT wraps cord about the spindle and ] pulls it backward and forward as rap
 idly as possible.
 l A further complication of the hre l drill was the application of the bow
 string-similar to the drilling appliance
 used by the jeweler. The socketed rest for the vertical shaft was then held
 by one hand, while the thong was all
 ternately pulled and slackened with the
 other. Thus a saving of labor was at. l talned.
 The forerunners of the comparatively modern flint and steel as means of striking light were flint and pyrites,
 or two pieces of pyrites. These were l struck together and the sparks thus
 generated were caught among a little dry moss. The Esquimaux from Smith Sound to Boring Strait use this meth. l cd. A very complete strike-a-light set
 including flint, pyrites. finder in dainty I little bags and leather pad to guard
 the fingers, comes from Cape Bath
 urst. Evans points also to Fdegla ant
 the European archaeological sites fo
 the antiquity of th4n method.
 Modern forms Of the flint and stee 1 ....l. -.a- A.