The Romance of Modern Chemistry

HOW FIRE IS MADE twentieth century. They supposed that fire had been stolen from heaven by Prometheus, who carried it off in a hollow tube; while, according to another account, he obtained it by holding a rod close to the sun. “ A fairy story,” some reader will say ; and certainly one feels that the ancients, having looked at the difficulty, simply told a pretty tale and passed by on the other side. All the chemical methods of producing fire, those, namely, which are now employed, are comparatively new, and up till about a century ago, only what we might call mechanical methods were available. Friction, for example, as everybody knows, produces heat, and one of the oldest ways of producing fire consisted in rubbing one stick against another until the wood inflamed. In some primi- tive tribes a stick was pushed backwards and forwards in a groove in a piece of wood; sometimes the one stick was used as a drill, and was rapidly rotated in a hole cut out of a fixed block. Evidence of the extraordinary dexterity with which these fire-sticks can be manipulated by savages is found in Captain Cook’s description of the production of fire among some Australian tribes. He writes : “ To produce fire they take two pieces of dry, soft wood, one a stick about 8 to 9 inches long, the other flat; the stick they shape into an obtuse point at one end, and pressing it upon the other, turn it nimbly by holding it between both their hands, as we do a chocolate mill, often shift- ing their hands up and then moving them down upon it, to increase the pressure as much as possible. By this method they get fire in less than two minutes, and from the smallest spark they increase it with great speed and dexterity.” How we should grumble nowadays if we had to work hard for two minutes before getting a light! The chances are that the savage would beat the civilised man 119