takes a
brass button, and after giving it a good rub on his desk, applies it to
the cheek of some inoffensive boy at his side, much to the astonishment
of his quiet neighbour. Well, I am going to see whether I can produce
fire with a brass button. I have mounted my button, as you see, for
certain reasons on a cork, and I will endeavour by rubbing the button on
a piece of pinewood to make it sufficiently hot to fire tinder. Already
I have done so.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

Talking about friction as a means of producing heat, I should like to
mention that at the last Paris Exhibition I saw water made to boil, and
coffee prepared from it, by the heat resulting from the friction of two
copper plates within the liquid.

That then is the earliest history I can give you of the production of
fire, and at once from that history I come to the reign of the
tinder-box. The tinder-box constitutes one of the very earliest methods,
no doubt, of obtaining fire. I have searched for some history of the
tinder-box, and all I can say for certain is that it was in use long
before the age of printing. I have here several rare old tinder-boxes. I
intend showing you in the course of these lectures every detail of their
construction and use. I have no doubt this very old tinder-box that you
see here (Fig. 3 A) was once upon a time kept on the mantel-piece of the
kitchen well polished and bright, and I do not doubt but that it has lit
hundreds and thousands of fires, and, what is more, has very often been
spoken to very disrespectfully when the servant wanted to light the
fire, and her master was waiting for his breakfast. I will project a
picture of it on the screen, so that you may all see it. There it is.
It is a beautiful piece of apparatus. There is the tinder, the steel
(Fig. 3 _b_), the flint (_c_), and the matches (_d_) complete.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

[Illustration: Fig. 4.]

It was with this instrument, long before the invention of matches, that
our grandfathers obtained light. I want to show you how the trick was
managed. First of all it was necessary to have good tinder. To obtain
this, they took a piece of linen and simply charred or burnt it, as you
see I am doing now (Fig. 4). (Cambric, I am told, makes the best tinder
for match-lighting, and the ladies, in the kindness of their hearts,
formerly made a point of saving their old cambric handkerchiefs for
this purpose.) The servants prepared the tinder over-night, f