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.

    58/338 (page 28)
    The hibachi proper is an indispensable belonging of the Japanese household. Commonly it is an earthenware cylindrical vessel, set in a deep wooden tray somewhat less in height than the vessel and pro¬ vided with openings at the ends for lifting. A bed of fine ashes is placed in the vessel, on which is located the charcoal fire. Accom¬ panying the hibachi are an iron trivet, a small shovel, a spatulate implement for smoothing the ashes, and a pair of slender pokers used as tongs. In Japan there is in use a brazier called kotatsu, a pottery vessel set in a square wood frame. It is placed in the center of a sleeping room in very cold weather, and people sleep with feet against the kotatsu, over which is spread a quilt. There have been in Mesopotamia cast-bronze braziers dating about the twelfth century, hexagonal in shape, with ornamentally pierced sides inclosing a bowl. The legs are formed by angle pieces riveted to the side plates, and raise the vessel several inches from the floor. Crescent ornaments on the upper edges of the side plates appear to represent the sacred horns, very ancient emblems of the powerful bull gods. The Parsee brazier for the sacred fire is vase shape, of metal, and with drop handles. The metal tray for the sacred wood kindled by the heat of the fire in the brazier sets on top. As there are no pro¬ visions for draught and the tray serves to smother the fire, it is diffi¬ cult to see how the sacred wood on the tray could ignite. 68 Of the great antiquity of the brazier there can be little doubt, as a research into the history of the device will show. The brazier must, however, be placed development ally in the period when rela¬ tively considerable advance in the arts of life had taken place, pre¬ sumably not before the use of pottery. Thg brazier is especially interesting in the history of the stove, of which it was the antecedent and which is discussed in the following section. • FLUE STOVES The conduction of heat through flues for warming rooms by in¬ direct heat radiation is an old device of uncertain origin, which is characterized by primitiveness in the East and advanced invention and art in the West. The Romans made extensive use of this prin¬ ciple, and it is said by Seneca, who flourished about the middle of the first century of the Christian era, that in his time a particular kind of pipe was invented and affixed to the walls of buildings, through which heat from a subterranean furnace was made to circulate.69 The calida or furnace stove was known to the Romans and Greeks.70 It is the ®81. M. Casanowicz. Proc. U. S. Nat., Mus., vol. 61, 1922, art. 2, pi. 2. 69 The Panorama of Professions and Trades, Philadelphia, 1946, p. 213. 70 Smith’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, p. 233.