Page:Firemaking Apparatus in the U.S. National Museum.djvu/66

 578 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. lithic times. The old English steel, or " Flourish," (fig. 48) is the char- acteristic shape, and has been carried by English commerce into mauy places. A picture of a strike-a-light used by the Lenguas of Brazil, seen lately, shows the unmistakable old " flourish." Fig. 48. English Tinder-box (with flint, "flourish," and bundle of spunks. (Cat. No 75516, U. S. N. M. Kngland. Collected by Louis and Maurice Farmer.) The tinder-boxes had also a damper to extinguish the tinder of burnt linen and to keep it dry. The lids were furnished often with a candle socket. This feature, says Mr. Lovett, has led to their preservation as candle-sticks long after they were superseded by matches. Many devices were invented in order to improve on the crude way of holding the flint and steel in the hands to strike the spark into the tinder-box. One of these was the wheel tinder-box (fig. 49). The com- Fig 49. Wheel Tinder-box. (Cat No. 130431, V. S. N. M. Broadalbin, N. Y. Presented by F. S. Hawley.) partment near the wheel held the tinder. The flint was placed in a socket on the sliding lid, and the wheel was turned by unwinding a string from oif its axle with a sharp pull as in spinning a top. The