The primitive race of men being so little acquainted with the nature and use of fire, could not, by any means, dress and prepare their food in a proper manner. They contented themselves with gathering a few roots or herbs, rubbing them between their hands, or bruising them between two stones, and then exposing them a little to the heat of the sun. Their flesh and fish, when they were so fortunate as to find any, were treated much in the same manner; and received no other cookery than a short exposure to the rays of the sun. Even after the discovery of artificial fire, a long time elapsed before proper and commodious methods were devised for employing that element in the preparation of food, as sufficiently appears from the awkward expedients adopted by the first races of men, and from those which modern travellers inform us are practised by several nations to this day.
The inhabitants of several of the South Sea islands practise no other method of roasting hogs than by put ting red hot stones into their bodies: others &.ve a me thod of boiling water, by pouring a quantit of it into the hollow of a rock, and then throwing into it burning coals, or stones rendered red hot; by which it is warm ed sufficiently to boil their meat. The savages of New France, instead of hollow stones or rocks, make use of a kind of wooden troughs, in which they boil their water, by immersing in it stones heated in the fire, which they change from time to time, (Meturs des San wages, t. 2.) Such methods of cookery are very tedious and imperfect; and it was natural for mankind to seek after some method of directly communicating the heat of the fire through a vessel to the water which it contained; but the difficulty was to find materials which, at the same time that they were common and easily fa shioned, should be capable of resisting the action of fire sufficiently lung for the purpose of cookery. Many trials appear to have been made before this difficulty was fully surmounted.
The savages of Forbisher's Straits used a kind of boiler made of the skins of fish newly killed, (Rec. des Voy. an Nord. t. 1.) The inhabitants of the western islands formerly employed, for the same purpose, the hide? of the animals whose flesh they cooked, or their stomachs, made up into the form of a bag. The Os tiakes, at this day, dress their victuals in kettles made of the bark of trees, (Rec. des Voy. an t. 8.) In Siam, the common people have no other way of dressing their rice, than by putting it upon the fit e in a cocoa shell : the shell burns while the rice is dressing, but the rice is done enough before the shell is quite con sumed. The inhabitants of Ambaina and Ternate make use of bamboos, or hollow reeds, or the same purpose. (Hist. gen. des Voy.) It would appear natural to apply something to these combustible vessels to make them better qualified for resisting the fire; and such an ex pedient we read of in the relation of a voyage to the Terra Australis, For the purpose of establishing a Chris tian mission in the third world, where we are told that the inhabitants of that country boiled their food in pieces of hollow wood, which they set upon the fire, and which they prevented from burning by daubing them with a of clay.
It was probably some such practice as this that first suggested to men the idea of making earthen ware. This experiment having taught them that there were some kinds of clay which would resist the action of fire, it was a natural thought to take away the wood entirely, and make use of the outward crust, when sufficiently burnt and hardened. Hence originated the very useful art of the potter, which, Plato remarks, is an art of great antiquity, because it did not require the use of the metals, (De Leg. 1. It appears, however, from the above statement, that even this simple aid to the art of cookery was not thought of till many inferior, and very awkward, expedients had long been employed; so very slow and precarious has been the progress of even the commonest arts of life.
In the earliest stages of society, the bare necessaries of life are often not procured without the greatest diffi culty. The spontaneous produce of the soil, or the precarious results of the chace, are the chief sources of supply at this period, and are often too scanty for the wants of men. Hunting has been the principal employ ment of men in the savage state, in all ages of the world. To this they are prompted, not only in order to procure a subsistence, but that they may defend their lives against the assaults of wild beasts. In process of time it comes to be observed, that amongst the innu merable multitude of animals that are spread over the face of the earth, there are some that live in droves or herds, and are naturally much more tame and tractable than the rest. It is desirable, therefore, to become masters of these, to confine them in enclosures, and to encourage their multiplication, in order that there may always be a sufficient supply of such food at command. In this manner too the hunting state succeeds the pastoral, when men derive their chief subsistence from flocks or herds of cattle; and before agriculture, or property in land, has yet arisen among them. Such was the mode of life during the patriarchal ages; and -hell continues to be the way of living of the Tartars, Arabians, and many other considerable nations, to the present day. Of this way cf life the book of Genesis presents us with an in teresting picture : ace particularly chap. xiii. 5.