In the course of time a man somewhere in the world hit upon a plan of kindling a fire without having any fire to begin with; that is to say, he hit upon a plan of producing a fire by _artificial_ means. He knew that by rubbing his hands together very hard and very fast he could make them very warm. By trial he learned that by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together he could make _them_ very warm. Then he asked himself the question: Can a fire be kindled by rubbing two pieces of wood together, if they are rubbed hard enough? He placed upon the ground a piece of perfectly dry wood (Fig. 2) and rubbed this with the end of a stick until a groove was made. In the groove a fine dust of wood--a kind of sawdust--was made by the rubbing. He went on rubbing hard and fast, and, behold, the dust in the groove began to glow! He placed some dry grass upon the embers and blew upon them with his breath, and the grass burst into a flame.[2] Here for the first time a man kindled a fire for himself. He had invented the match, the greatest invention, perhaps, in the history of the world. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE FIRE DRILL. (Simple Form.)] The stick-and-groove method--as we may call it--of getting a flame was much better than guarding fire and carrying it from place to place; yet it was, nevertheless, a very clumsy method. The wood used had to be perfectly dry, and the rubbing required a vast amount of work and patience. Sometimes it would take hours to produce the spark. After a while--and doubtless it was a very long while--it was found that it was better to keep the end of the stick in one spot and twirl it (Fig. 3) than it was to plow to and fro with it. The twirling motion made a hole in which the heat produced by the friction was confined in a small space. At first the drilling was done by twirling the stick between the palms of the hands, but this made the hands too hot for comfort, and the fire-makers learned to do the twirling with a cord or thong[3] wrapped around the stick (Fig. 4). You see, the upper end of the stick which serves as a drill turns in a cavity in a mouthpiece which the operator holds between his teeth. If you should undertake to use a fire-drill of this kind, it is likely that your jaws would be painfully jarred. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--FIRE DRILL. (Improved Form.)] By both the methods described above, the fire was obtained by rubbing or _friction_. The friction method seems to have been used by all primitive peoples, and it is still in use among savages in various parts of the world. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--STRIKING FIRE.] [Illustration: FIG. 6.--TINDER BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND SULPHUR-TIPPED SPLINTERS.]