the first time, never having used it for shaving, that the glass was not the standard straightforward reflector but rather a magnifying mirror. If it could be accidentally focused to warm his skin to a point of discomfort, maybe it could be intentionally used to make fire.
He went into the trees to fetch firewood, disregarding the pain in his knee, which seemed to belong to someone else, perhaps himself in a dream.
He brought back an armload of dead branches. Some were of brown-needled pine, but he had also foraged beyond the evergreens to find other, huskier trees, among them one of the few he could identify, namely the birch, from which he was able without implements to pull some filaments of bark so thin as to be almost transparent, from places where peeling had begun to occur for natural causes.
To contain the tinder against a random breeze, he scooped out a little depression in the sand. It took a few moments of adjustment in the distance between the mirror and the inflammable matter before the focus could be refined to reduce the point of light to its minimum diameter. But even when he had done this, it seemed far too blunt, too pale, to coax out flame from inert matter at the temperature of cool airâ¦. He told himself as much even as he watched the miracle in which the paleness of the tinder slowly turned dark, from tan to brown, then went quickly to a blackening at the heart of which was soon a pinhead of red glow. He blew on it too soon, eliciting a wisp of gray smoke, but returning the mirror to play and, breathing more gently on the new embers, produced a small yellow flame, the most glorious achievement of his life. He piled on the dry pine needles and shreds or threads of birch bark, and finally the pieces of fallen branches, graduated as to thickness.
In a few moments the fire burned so lustily that he feared his supply of fuel would soon be exhausted. He went to get more from the woods, but now had to range farther. Already the excitement of making flame had been diminished by the fact of its having been made, and once again he remembered his sore knee. But he reflected that now he could heat water with which, with strips of T-shirt, a warm compress could be fashionedâthat is, if he could find something in which to heat water. The cups from the thermos were made of plastic, but they were sufficiently heat-resistant to accept the hottest liquids. Primitive peoples, of whom he was now a fellow, were ingenious within the conditions of their ignorance. Before arriving at a sophistication that would enable them to slice off a cross section of a log and call it a wheel, they had used the whole thing on which to roll heavy objects. Before crafting vessels that could endure direct fire, they had heated and dropped rocks into holes in the ground filled with water.
He located some small stones, pebbles, and with care situated them in the fire at a place where they could be retrieved with tonged sticks. With the addition of a third application of wood, the flames were now rising to a formidable height, smoking, sparking, and he was gratified to be almost singed as he dropped pebbles into the embers. If you had fire, you had one of the essential elements of survival anywhere. Except in drenching rain, fire could in itself be the better part of shelter: with a hot enough blaze, you could do without a roof or walls. Also fire could serve as a deterrent against animal enemies. He was no longer defenseless against the bear.
He filled both plastic cups with water from the lake. When the stones seemed to have been heated sufficiently, he rolled them out of the coals with a long stick he had broken from a pine branch that was still green and thus resistant to flame. With another stick of the same sort, which served as the other member of the tongs, he managed after a few unsuccessful attempts to get the hot stones into the cups. This project too worked as intended. He poured the warm water onto the T-shirt and
He went into the trees to fetch firewood, disregarding the pain in his knee, which seemed to belong to someone else, perhaps himself in a dream.
He brought back an armload of dead branches. Some were of brown-needled pine, but he had also foraged beyond the evergreens to find other, huskier trees, among them one of the few he could identify, namely the birch, from which he was able without implements to pull some filaments of bark so thin as to be almost transparent, from places where peeling had begun to occur for natural causes.
To contain the tinder against a random breeze, he scooped out a little depression in the sand. It took a few moments of adjustment in the distance between the mirror and the inflammable matter before the focus could be refined to reduce the point of light to its minimum diameter. But even when he had done this, it seemed far too blunt, too pale, to coax out flame from inert matter at the temperature of cool airâ¦. He told himself as much even as he watched the miracle in which the paleness of the tinder slowly turned dark, from tan to brown, then went quickly to a blackening at the heart of which was soon a pinhead of red glow. He blew on it too soon, eliciting a wisp of gray smoke, but returning the mirror to play and, breathing more gently on the new embers, produced a small yellow flame, the most glorious achievement of his life. He piled on the dry pine needles and shreds or threads of birch bark, and finally the pieces of fallen branches, graduated as to thickness.
In a few moments the fire burned so lustily that he feared his supply of fuel would soon be exhausted. He went to get more from the woods, but now had to range farther. Already the excitement of making flame had been diminished by the fact of its having been made, and once again he remembered his sore knee. But he reflected that now he could heat water with which, with strips of T-shirt, a warm compress could be fashionedâthat is, if he could find something in which to heat water. The cups from the thermos were made of plastic, but they were sufficiently heat-resistant to accept the hottest liquids. Primitive peoples, of whom he was now a fellow, were ingenious within the conditions of their ignorance. Before arriving at a sophistication that would enable them to slice off a cross section of a log and call it a wheel, they had used the whole thing on which to roll heavy objects. Before crafting vessels that could endure direct fire, they had heated and dropped rocks into holes in the ground filled with water.
He located some small stones, pebbles, and with care situated them in the fire at a place where they could be retrieved with tonged sticks. With the addition of a third application of wood, the flames were now rising to a formidable height, smoking, sparking, and he was gratified to be almost singed as he dropped pebbles into the embers. If you had fire, you had one of the essential elements of survival anywhere. Except in drenching rain, fire could in itself be the better part of shelter: with a hot enough blaze, you could do without a roof or walls. Also fire could serve as a deterrent against animal enemies. He was no longer defenseless against the bear.
He filled both plastic cups with water from the lake. When the stones seemed to have been heated sufficiently, he rolled them out of the coals with a long stick he had broken from a pine branch that was still green and thus resistant to flame. With another stick of the same sort, which served as the other member of the tongs, he managed after a few unsuccessful attempts to get the hot stones into the cups. This project too worked as intended. He poured the warm water onto the T-shirt and
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