Fire as an agent in human culture / by Walter Hough.

  • Walter Hough
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fire as an agent in human culture / by Walter Hough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/338 (page 5)
    IGNITION IN NATURE Natural ignitions may be divided into volcanic, chemical, electrical, frictional due to earth movements, and frictional on wood. Dioptric ignitions, which are observed in the mechanical ages in connection with glass, would be of the rarest occurrence in nature. Stories as to fortuitous solar ignition through ice must be received with incre¬ dulity. The widespread volcanic activity following certain well-defined belts and areas could furnish the major source of fire for man. The attendant phenomena, such as the burning of forests, beds of cooling lava, hot springs, etc., might well have been within the experience of early man. When the place of origin of man shall be fixed more definitely conclusions will be possible on this subject. At earlier periods within the assigned stage of man volcanic activity was more prevalent than in later periods. Chemical ignitions in nature have frequently been recorded, and in a majority of.cases connected with veins of coal spontaneously fired. Veins of coal having an excess mineral content are more subject to ignition than purer veins. The cause of ignition appears to be the decomposition of pyrites forming sulphates in the presence of loosely aggregated carbon. Spontaneous combustion of coal dust in piles or bins is not explained, but may be due to the occlusion of gases, as in spongy platinum. The rising of the fire in the ground-off charred dust, which is a feature of the fire drill, seems to have such explana¬ tion. Smouldering seams of brown coal have been observed in New Zealand.12 Beds of lignite along the banks of the Mackenzie River a few miles above Bear River have been burning for a long time, and the natives explain the origin of this fire by the tale of Beaver who emptied a dish of grease on his fire and told it to burn and never go out.13 Carl Bock writes that near Long Wai, Borneo, there is a burn¬ ing hill that is a coal formation on fire, and has been so since the memory of man.14 One of the seams of coal in Monongalia County, West Virginia, is subject to “burn outs,” which have occurred at some former time and have become naturally extinguished. It is fre¬ quently asserted that such coal burnings were started by lightning, and it is also suggested that Indian camp fires on the outcrop is a cause, but there is little evidence in the locality mentioned to sub¬ stantiate these explanations. Pallas recounts such a fire so occurring in trans-Ural Russia: “Many persons then living remembered the storm during which a thunderbolt fell upon a great pine tree, which, taking fire and 11 Julius Haas. Moas and Moa Hunters. (Baird pamphlets in Smithsonian Library.) 18 Frank Russell. Athabascan Myths, Journ. Amer. Folk Lore, vol. 13, No. 48, January-March, 1900, p. 16. 14 Head Hunters of Borneo, p. 84.