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.

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    National Museum, who was consulted on this point. Mr. Miller also suggests that it is more likely in the case of fire clearing that species were exterminated or forced to another environment, and that other species spread into the denuded area. There is a popular opinion in New Zealand that the moa were destroyed by fire from an eruption of Tongarioo which swept over the country. 24 The denuding of the prairies was important in the increase of the Buffalo. The establishment of prairie sod and distribution of species and the composition of societies of its grassy flora was also a consequence.25 Col. R. I. Dodge says that the Indians in their great autumn hunts set fire to the prairie to signal their friends that they had found buffalo, or with the object of more effectually bringing the animals together by limiting their feeding grounds, thus reducing the labor of the hunt.26 The clearing of the prairies also influenced the distribution and habits of Indian tribes, facilitating agriculture in which sod removal was profitable on account of the richness of the soil. (See Agricul¬ ture.) If, as appears probable, forests have been swept by fire at intervals throughout their history, it is likely that there has been established in some tree species a resistance to the effects of heat. There may be seen in the thickening of the bark near the ground perhaps a protective device. In general, the damage of forest fires is related to the amount of litter on the forest floor and the species of trees. Young replacement growth in most cases suffer. It has been observed that in conifers whose habit is to produce resistant cones almost prohibiting the release of seed, as in the lodge- pole pine, fire is termed essential to the dissemination of the seed.27 LOCATION OF THE FIRE The situation of the fire in the primitive ages necessarily must have been varied. The idea to be kept in mind is a fire unattended with even the minor adaptations which have grown toward the fire¬ place, the stove, and the myriad inventions for locating, carrying, and generally utilizing fire, which are treated herein in their proper class¬ ification. The fire may thus have been placed in front of the rock shelter or cave, as observed in many stations, or in some relation to a camp. The extemporaneous fireplace can hardly be imagined, since the very possession of fire entails responsibilities as to care and preservation which predetermined a well-considered plan to keep the fire. The prearchitectural period thus requires the placing of the }4 Julius Haas. Moas and Moa Hunters, 1871, p. 7. *5 J. Q. Blemmer. The Plant World, vol, 13, February, 1910, pp. 42-44. 26 Hunting ground of the Great West, New York, 1877, p. 29. 27 Tower Gordon in Proc. Soc. of Amer. Foresters, vol. 4, 1909, p. 1.