Despite his highly developed mind and body and his boasted superiority, man must go forth and learn the secrets of light-production before he may emancipate himself from darkness.  If man could emit light in relative proportion to his size as compared with the firefly, he would need no other torch in the coal-mine.  How independent he would be in extreme darkness where his adapted eyes need only a feeble light-source!  Primitive man, desiring a light-source and having no means of making fire, imprisoned the glowing insects in a perforated gourd or receptacle of clay, and thus invented the first lantern perhaps before he knew how to make fire.  The fireflies of the West Indies emit a continuous glow of considerable luminous intensity and the natives have used these imprisoned insects as light-sources.  Thus mankind has exhibited his superiority by adapting the facilities at hand to the growing requirements which his independent nature continuously nourished.  His insistent demand for independence in turn has nourished his desire to learn nature’s secrets and this desire has increased in intensity throughout the ages.

The act of imprisoning a glowing insect was in itself no greater stride along the highway of progress than the act of picking a tasty fruit from its tree.  However, the crude lantern perhaps directed his primitive mind to the possibilities of artificial light.  The flaming fagot from the fire was the ancestor of the oil-lamp, the candle, the lantern, and the electric flash-light.  It is a matter of conjecture how much time elapsed before his feeble intellect became aware that resinous wood afforded a better light-source than woods which were less inflammable.  Nevertheless, pine knots and similar resinous pieces of wood eventually were favored as torches and their use has persisted until the present time.  In some instances in ancient times resin was extracted from wood and burned in vessels.  This was the forerunner of the grease-and the oil-lamp.  In the woods to-day the craftsman of the wilds keeps on the lookout for live trees saturated with highly inflammable ingredients.

Viewed from the present age, these smoking, flickering light-sources appear very crude; nevertheless they represent a wide gulf between their users and those primitive beings who were unacquainted with the art of making fire.  Although the wood fire prevailed as a light-source throughout uncounted centuries, it was subjected to more or less improvement as civilization advanced.  When the wood fire was brought indoors the day was extended and early man began to develop his crude arts.  He thought and planned in the comfort and security of his cave or hut.  By the firelight he devised implements and even decorated his stone surroundings with pictures which to-day reveal something of the thoughts and activities of mankind during a civilization which existed many thousand years ago.