Document

Title

The tool that is more: an inquiry into fire, the original promethean invention
Document Type: Book Chapter
Author(s): S. J. Pyne
Editor(s): A. Molella; J. Bedi
Publication Year: 2003

Cataloging Information

Keyword(s):
  • copper
  • fire control
  • fire equipment
  • fire management
  • human caused fires
  • iron
  • minerals
Topic(s):
Region(s):
Record Maintained By:
TTRS Staff; https://talltimbers.org/contact-us
Record Last Modified: July 24, 2018
FRAMES Record Number: 46013
Tall Timbers Record Number: 21664
TTRS Location Status: Not in file
TTRS Call Number: Fire File
TTRS Abstract Status: Fair use, Okay, Reproduced by permission

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy.

Description

From the Text (p.13) ... 'At the conclusion of our survey of the ways in which human intelligence calls art to its aid in counterfeiting nature, we cannot but marvel at the fact that fire is necessary for almost every operation. It takes the sands of the Earth and melts them, now into glass, now into silver or various forms of lead, or some substance useful to the painter or the physician. By fire minerals are disintegrated and copper produced: in fire is iron born and by fire is it subdued: by fire gold is purified: by fire stones are burned for the binding together of the walls of houses. Fire is the immeasurable, uncontrollable element, concerning which it is hard to say whether it consumes more or produces more.'

Citation:
Pyne, S. J. 2003. The tool that is more: an inquiry into fire, the original promethean invention, in A Molella and J Bedi eds., Inventing for the Environment. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation, p. 11-27.