that
many of the backward tribes of {91} to-day are using primitive methods
of cooking, and the man of the Stone Ages had methods of cooking the
meat of animals. In all probability, the suggestion came as people
were grouped around the fire for artificial heat, and then, either by
intention or desire, the experiment of cooking began. After man had
learned to make water-tight baskets, a common device of cooking was to
put water in the basket and, after heating stones on a fire, put them
in the basket to heat the water and then place the food in the basket
to be cooked. This method is carried on by the Indians in some parts
of Alaska to this day, where they use a water-tight basket for this
purpose. Probably this method of cooking food was a later development
than the roasting of food on coals or in the ashes, or in the use of
the wooden spit. Catlin, in his _North American Indians_, relates that
certain tribes of Indians dig a hole in the ground and line it with
hide filled with water, then place hot stones in the water, in which
they place their fish, game, or meat for cooking. This is interesting,
because it carries out a more or less universal idea of adaptation to
environment. Probably the plains Indians had no baskets or other
vessels to use for this purpose, but they are found to have used
similar methods of cooking grasshoppers. They dig a hole in the
ground, build a fire in the hole, and take the fire out and put in the
grasshoppers. Thus, they have an exhibition of the first fireless
cooker.

It is thought by some that the need of vessels which would endure the
heat was the cause of the invention of pottery. While there seems to
be little evidence of this, it is easy to conjecture that when water
was needed to be heated in a basket, a mass of clay would be put on the
bottom of the basket before it was put over the coals of fire. After
the cooking was done, the basket could easily be detached from the
clay, leaving a hard-baked bowl. This led to the suggestion of making
bowls of clay and baking them for common use. Others suggest that the
fact of making holes in the ground for cooking purposes gave the
suggestion that by the use of clay a portable vessel might be made for
similar purposes.

{92}

The economic value of cooking rests in the fact that a larger utility
comes from the cooked than from the raw food. Though the phenomena of
physical development of tribes and nations cannot be explaine