Fire.-- Without the use of fire, man could not have risen above the lowest depths of sav agery and barbarism Something of its im portance may be judged from the fact that it early became an object of worship. To keep it burning was a religious duty and the fashioning' of metals at the earliest forges was regarded as more than a human occupation.
The earliest evidences of the nse of fire thus far discovered date c. e.c. 60000 and consist of °charred wood and bones frequently found in the industrial deposits of early Acheulean times.* Osborn intimates that about B.C. 50000 the Neanderthal men first made real use of fins by employing it as a weapon to drive the bears from the caves in the Neander valley.
In the grotto of La Mouthe a stone lamp, c. B.C. 16000, has been unearthed. This lamp, not unlike some used in Dordogne at the pres ent day, is a piece of sandstone wrought into the shape of a shallow bowl, into which was placed, according to Berthelot, animal fat and a wick. About B.C. 10000 the flint miners of Norfolk had lamps of chalk with a much deeper bowl to carry a !greater supply of fat, most likely that they might labor for a longer time in their underground workings. These lamps represent man's first attempt to put fire to do mestic and industrial use. The life of man was profoundly affected by discovery of ways and means to cook his food. It meant better food and better health. When he took the fire and put it on a crude stone hearth lust within the hut, it meant a better home an the gath ering about the hearth marks the beginning of the family circle with all that that has meant.
It was another step out of savagery when man with the aid of fire felled trees and hol lowed logs to serve as boats. Much more mo mentous for civilization was the day when he discovered that copper and iron could be smelt ed from the rocks, and that these metals could be fashioned into very useful tools. Just when or where this happened there is no telling, but it would seem that the people in the Nile and Euphrates valleys had made this discovery and were using metals before or by a.c. 3500. Bronze came into use in Egypt as early as 3700 and there are indications of the use of iron as early as a.c. 3300.
Not less important for the upward progress of man was the invention by which he was able to make fire at any time and place he chose. It is believed that certain flint °fabricators* be longing to the period a.c. 7000 (were used in conjunction with nodules of iron pyrites for producing fire,* the oldest °flint and steel.*
Mining.— ((Picks* made of flint and (the antlers of the red deer* found in the Thames Valley and elsewhere point to an organized min ing industry for obtaining flint, needed for tool malting as early as B.C. 10000. One specimen of the picks made from deer antlers still re tains °the impression of a miner's thumb on the chalky clay which adheres to the surface.* There had been no change in the character of mining tools when man began to mine for cop per, iron, tin, silver and gold, c. an. 4000. That he should be patient and persistent enough to wrest these metals from the earth with such difficulty bears witness to his deter mination to live more effectively.
Metal-Working.-- The discovery of metal, and that it could be wrought to any desired shape, put into human hands resources by which man speedily lifted himself above the level of the Stone Age. Tools and weapons of metal enormously increased man's skill and speed as a worker. Metal-worldng enabled hu man ingenuity to manifest itself in many far reaching inventions and improvements. To in dicate all that it meant to man in his struggle to get out of the slough of savagery and bar bansm, in which he had floundered for so many thousands of years, is impossible within the lim its of this article. A hint may suffice. A hol lowed tree tnink or a bitumen-lined rush con traption would have been the limit of water navigation had the art of metal-working not been discovered. House building and city build ing would have been practically impossible nor would there have been carts and chariots.
. Textiles.-- The growing of flaic, first met with c. ac. 7000, and the spinning-whorls, discs of. pottery or stone used as balance wheels on pnantive spindles, are good enough evidence that by this time man had invented the art of weaving. The first woven stuff must in the na ture of things have been very coarse, but among predynastic Egyptians, earlier than a.c. 5000, weaving of a remarkably fine order, impossible without a loom it would seem, was already an accomplished fact. In China the silk industry attained a high degree of perfection a.c. 2500. It is recorded that B.C. 700 cotton was grown in the gardens of Sennacherib, that the people gathered and *carded it for garments.* When man learned to weave (fine linen° for the cov ering of his nakedness he felt a new dignity and received an added impulse toward a conscious superiority.