What Lead To The Discovery Of Fire

Since the very earliest times, fire has been known to man. Men lived thousands of years ago in caves Europe. Charred bits of bone and charcoal have been found among the stones that Were evidently used as fire places. The men learnt the trick of making a fire. We think that the use of fire was known to man prior to the method of starting it. Lightning might strike a dead tree which would smoulder. From this the lit up fire might have remained burning for years.

It is a guess as to how the cave, men learnt to start a fire. In moving or treading over the loose stones in the dark, the first men must have noticed sparks when one stone struck another. The idea of purposely striking two stones, might have taken thousands of years, to take shape, to produce a fire.

An observation of the primitive people of today, is another way to know how early men discovered fire. Some of them are in a stage of development that our forefathers reached thousands of years ago.

A look at some of these primitive methods enlightens. In Alaska, Indians of certain tribes rub sulphur over two stones and strike them. When sulphur ignites, they drop the burning stone among some dried grass or other dead wood etc.

In China and India, a piece of broken pottery is struck against a bamboo stick. The outer hard coating of bamboo appears to have the qualities of flint. The Eskimos strike a common piece of quartz against a piece of iron pyrites, which is very common where they live. Among the North American Indians, rubbing two sticks together to produce fire was a common method.

The ancient Greeks and Romans had still another method. They used a kind of lens, called “a burning glass”, to focus the rays of the Sun. The heat rays concentrated this way were enough to set fire to dry wood.

In ancient days an interesting thing about fire was that it was kept burning “perpetually”. The Mayas and Aztecs in Mexico kept a fire alive and the Greeks and Egyptians and Romans kept fires burning in temples.