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fi^ $CHOOI Ad3f G478664 j530 Adler " Fire in your life j530 Adler AdSf C478664 Fire in your life " LOAN NOV 5 -^ ^^, , _^^ PUBLIC LIBRARY FORT WAYNE AND ALLEN COUNTY, NO. ALLEN COUNTY EXTENSION DEPT. I ANTHONY 3333 \ I LOAN UNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY NOV l« 3 1833 001 Ii^ I Fire in Your Life Books by Irving Adler FIRE IN YOUR LIFE TIME IN YOUR LIFE THE SECRET OF LIGHT DISCOVER THE STARS (co-author) IRVING ABLER Fire in Your Illustrated by Life Ruth Adler The John Day Company New York Copyright © 1955 by Irving and Ruth Adlei All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not he repro- duced in any form without permission. Published by The John Day Company, 62 West 45th Street, New York 36, N. Y., and on the same day in Canada by Longmans, Green 6- Company, Toronto. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 55-9930 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA VAN REES PRESS • NEW YORK CO. SCHOOLS . M/y^i/i i I €711 I. II. III. C478664 Man Finds Fire What Is 9 19 Fire? Learning To Make Fire 38 IV. Fire, Comfort, and Freedom 54 V. Fire, The Magician 66 VI. Fire and Power 91 VII. Fire and Destruction 101 Fuels and the Future 115 Index 128 VIII. ¥ Fire in Your Life CHAPTER I Man Finds Fire Fire and Old Bones IN 1927 a tooth was dug out of the Hmestone in a cave at Choukoutien, 37 miles southwest of Peking, China. This was no ordinary tooth. now called Peking Spurred on by It was the tooth Man, who of an ape-man, lived 500,000 years ago. this find, scientists continued to dig and They found many and bones, including some fairly complete skulls. From these remains they figured out what Peking Man must have looked like. He had a slanting brow, bony ridges over his eyes, and practically no chin. His brain was much larger search in the cave for the next ten years. more teeth than that of an ape, but not as large as the brain of modern man. With the help of this brain, Peking Man or his ances- had already made a great discovery that no other animal but man has ever made. He had learned how to use fire. This fact was proved by the heaps of charred animal bones found with his remains and his crude stone tools in the cave. So we know that man's knowledge of the use of fire is at least a tors half -million years old. Fire Is a Tool An ape will sometimes pick up a stone and use it to crack open a nut. When he does so, he is using the stone as a tool. 9 Over a million years ago, the ancestors of who had man were ape-like trick. They occasionally by picking up sticks and stones to use as tools. Then, later, some of them found that they could have a better tool by chipping one stone with another. Those who made this discovery were taking the first step in