Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/265

Rh by friction is not unknown to the Arabs, their instru- ment being the simple fire-drill.

Though direct history does not tell us that the Finns and Lapps used the fire-drill before they had the flint and steel, there is a passage safely preserving the memory of its use in a Finnish poem, whose native metre is familiar to our ears from its imitation in 'Hiawatha;'

It is, however, by our own race that the most remarkable body of evidence of the ancient use of the fire-drill has been preserved. The very instrument still used in India for kindling the sacrificial fire seems never to have changed since the time when our ancestors left their eastern home to invade Europe. It is thus described:—"The process by which fire is obtained from wood is called churning, as it resembles that by which butter in India is separated from milk. . . . It consists in drilling one piece of arani-wood into another by pulling a string tied to it with a jerk with the one hand, while the other is slackened, and so alternately till the wood takes fire. The fire is received on cotton or flax held in the hand of an assistant Brahman." By this description it would seem that the Indian instrument is the same in principle as the Esquimaux thong-drill, shown in Fig. 24. It is driven by a three-stranded cord of cowhair and hemp; and there is probably a piece of wood pressed down upon the upper end of the spindle, to keep it down to its bearing. In the name of Prometheus, the