Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/249

Rh we do a chocolate mill, often shifting 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." The same instrument is known in Tasmania. It appears usual both in Australia and elsewhere to lay the lower piece on the ground, holding it firm with feet or knees. A good deal may depend on the kind of wood used, and its dryness, etc., for in some countries it seems to take much more time and labour, two men often working it, one beginning at the top of the stick when his companion's hands have come down nearly to the bottom, and so on till the fire comes.

Contrasting with the isolation of the stick-and-groove in a single district, the geographical range of the simple fire-drill is immense. Its use among the Australians, and Tasmanians, forms one of the characters which distinguish their culture from that of the Polynesians; while it appears again among the Malays in Sumatra and the Carolines. It was found by Cook in Unalashka, and by the Russians in Kamchatka; where, for many years, flint and steel could not drive it out of use among the natives, who went on carrying every man his fire-sticks. It remains in use among the Lepchas of Sikkim, a Tibetan race of Northern India. There is reason to suppose that it prevailed in India before the Aryans invaded the country, bringing with them an improved apparatus, for at this day it is used by the Yenadis, indigenes of South India, and by the wild Veddahs of Ceylon, a race so capable of resisting foreign innovation that