Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/263

Rh one is mentioned measuring about a foot and a half (probably in circumference), which had a beautifully-polished concave surface, so as to magnify objects considerably, and such a mirror may have been used for making fire. Indeed, the objection to the story of the Virgins of the Sun is not that any of the details I have mentioned must of necessity be untrue, but that the apparent traces of absorption from Plutarch invalidate whatever rests on Garcilaso de la Vega's unsupported testimony.

To conclude the notice of the art of fire-making in general, its last phase, the invention of lucifer matches in our own day, is fast spreading over the world, and bringing most other fire-making instruments down to the condition of curious relics of a past time.

But though some of the higher methods date far back in the history of the Old World, the employment of the wooden friction- apparatus in Europe, even for the practical purposes of ordinary life, has come up through the classical and mediæval times into the last century, and for all we know it may still exist. Pliny speaks of its finding a use among the outposts of armies and among shepherds, a stone to strike fire with not being always to be had; and in a remarkable account dating from 1768, which will be quoted presently, its use by Russian peasants for making fire in the woods is spoken of as an existing custom, just as, at a much more recent date, it is mentioned that the Portuguese Brazilians still have recourse to the fire-drill, when no other means of getting a light are forthcoming. For the most part, however, the early use of the instrument in the Old World is only to be traced in ancient myths, in certain ceremonial practices which have been brought down unchanged into a new state of culture, and in descriptions by Greek and Roman writers of the art. It had lost, even then, its practical im-