Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/24

 General History of Europe SIMPLEST METHOD OF MAKING FIRE A hard stick is rubbed rapidly back and forth on a strip of soft wood. A groove is formed, and the particles of wood rubbed off take fire from the heat pro- duced by the friction all around the Mediterranean Sea, especially along river banks, where they were dropped and, as the ages went on, deeply buried under sand and soil. Along with them are the bones of tropical animals, for the climate of Europe was warm in those remote times and the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and elephant lived where Paris and London now stand. For thousands of years the European sav- ages led the lives of hunters and protected themselves as best they could with their stone and wooden weapons against the wild beasts and their fellow savages. They built no huts or shelter so far as we know and slept on the ground wherever darkness overtook them. 6. Fire and Language. Man must have early made use of the fire resulting from volcanoes or from lightning which often set the forests aflame. He was able then to cook his food and keep himself warm. But a long time probably elapsed before he discovered for himself how to make fire, as savages still do by rubbing two sticks together. We know nothing of the invention of language, but man could not have gone far without some means of communication with his fellows. 7. Earliest Examples of Art. For reasons that can- not fully be explained the climate grew cold, and the ice and snow which always cover the high mountains and the region around the north pole began to creep downward until it covered all England and much of northern Europe. The tropical animals disappeared, and man had to take to living in caves and wearing the skins of animals in order to survive. From the remains now found in the IVORY NEEDLE OF THE STONE AGE Such needles are found in the rubbish in the French caverns, where the wives of the prehistoric hunters lost them and failed to find them again twenty thousand years ago. They show that these women were already sewing together the skins of wild animals as clothing