t is impossible to say. Fire arising from natural causes, such as
conflagrations started by lightning, no doubt early taught man the
advantage of this agency as a protection from cold, but the artificial
production of fire was a process too intricate to be arrived at by
undeveloped man except as a result of accident. It has never been
achieved, as we have seen, by the Andaman Mincopies. The rudiments of
the fire-making art were possessed by primitive man. In chipping flints
into arrow or lance heads sparks must frequently have been struck from
the hard stone, and at times these may have fallen upon and kindled
inflammable material. The rubbing requisite in shaping and polishing war
clubs may have yielded a heat occasionally causing fire. In boring the
holes necessary to make the needles found among primitive implements, a
process resembling that of the fire-drill must have been employed. In
short, it is not difficult to conceive of more than one way in which the
fire-making art could have been gained by accident, though it may have
been late in coming, since some, perhaps all, of the arts described were
not attained until the Glacial Age. Once possessed, this important art
would scarcely have been suffered to disappear. With its aid man could
defy the effects of the glacial chill, so far as its direct action upon
his body was concerned; and with it he also gained a new and efficient
means of defence against carnivorous animals, which have ever since
feared fire more than weapons.

The discovery of methods of artificial fire-making was perhaps preceded
by a utilization of the flames caused by lightning and other natural
causes, the fire being conveyed by torches from hearth to hearth and
kept alive with sedulous care. Even after artificial methods of
fire-making were invented, our savage ancestors were exceedingly careful
to keep their fires alive, as the Mincopies are to-day, and this heedful
attention left its traces until very recent times. So important was the
apparatus for kindling a flame deemed that in India the fire-twirl was
made a god and became one of the chief deities of that polytheistic
land. In many other places, especially in Persia, the element of flame
was raised to the dignity of a deity and worshipped among the higher
gods. Among the semi-civilized Americans the peril of the loss of fire
gave rise to a serious religious ceremony. At certain set intervals all
the fires within the limits of a tribe or na