improving existing accepted
methods of heating and warming rooms rather than of displacing them.

In the days when the earliest collectable curios of the ingle side were
being made by the village smith, and the local sculptor and mason were
preparing the chimney corner and the mantelpiece to surround the
fireplace, it was in front of the great open fire in the kitchen,
before which the large joints were roasted, that the retainers of the
baron and the landowner or lord of the manor assembled on winter nights.
It was around the fire which crackled on the hearth in the great hall
that the more favoured ones forgathered, and in the lesser homestead the
family drew up their chairs and found seats in the ingle nook, near the
fire, when snow was upon the ground, and frost and cold draughts made
them shiver in the houseplace.

The fireplace has its attractions still, and builders and architects
have designed many cosy corners within reach of the fire. The
furnishings of the hearth have become more decorative as times have
become more luxurious and art has gained the ascendant; and sometimes
their greater ornament has been at the sacrifice of utility, but the
root principles of construction as seen in the older grates and fire
appointments remain.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--ANCIENT ROMAN FIRE-DOG.

(_In the National Museum at Naples._)]

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--SUSSEX GRATE BACK, DATED 1588.]

Fire-making Appliances.

It seems natural to inquire into the origin of the need of a fireplace,
and to do so we must go back to prehistoric times and trace the
discovery of fire-making apparatus, for without the means of lighting a
fire it is obvious that the grate would be useless. With the fire came
artificial light, the two great discoveries being perfected side by
side, sometimes the one gaining ground, at others the one that had
fallen behind shooting ahead as the result of some great discovery, or
the application of scientific principles not deemed of utility to the
one or the other as the case might be. The fire-making appliances
which were in use for the purpose of lighting fires were of course used
long before any scheme of artificial lighting--apart from the flames and
radiance from the fire. Professor Flinders Petrie, that great
investigator into the antiquities of the Ancients, tells us that
fire-making by friction has been found to exist in far-off times. It
would appear that the discovery of how to produce fire has