Thanks Jodie!
If you translate the word pneumatic and congregated versions of the word into French and German and then google it in Yahoo! Germany and Yahoo! France, you get even more articles. And some pictures as well. I have read so many contradicting articles and it is through this I have seen the historic tug of war of primitive vs. modern fire lighting. Historically, we have become to see ourselves as almost a different species of human than that of our more tribal brothers. We wanted to civilize them with our technology and religion. It would be very difficult for people of that time to believe that we used primitive technology in everyday life. So everything read on fire pistons is to be read as speculation, looking for distinct references in each article. It is recorded that the diesel engine was invented after the inventor saw a fire piston that had been brought back from S.E. Asia. Other reports discount that information. Looking at the modern side of fire tool evolution, there are just well too many examples, too much documentation of fire pistons for it to be an unpopular short lived tool. I have always felt that they were invented earlier than many have believed. It is widely reported was that they were patented in 1807. My question have been How long were they around before that? When exactly did the discovery by air gun happen?
Tom, your article tells me two things. First, there is a source referenced, De Litteraria Espeditione per Pintificam Ditionem, a book written by Father Boscovich from Rome in 1755. 1755 may be the earliest recorded evidence of the fire piston, but it is recorded at this time. Second, this article is from the New York Times, proof that the fire piston was indeed in use in the United States. Though I have had no solid proof, I have believed they were because in 1947, Cache Lake Country book showed a diagram on how to make them, and a guy I know that is 74 years old knows of them. It was Mel Deweese who started the curiosity here in the late 70’s and the 80’s but I felt that his primitive fire piston was not the first ones on this land.
I have read the Balfour article in its entirety more than once but I think that many other clues are hidden in the articles that he read where he acquired his information. I will get a link to it for you.
http://books.google.com/books?id=p9UKAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA19&dq=fire+piston#PRA2-PA18,M1 The article starts on page 17 Sketches start on page 51 And the contradiction that the fire piston was not a very popular tool. The fire piston “…appear to have some favor upon the continent, and to a lesser degree in England.” This leads me to believe that the fire piston did not originate in England and only arrived too late, when the match was being invented. They do anything to discredit the other countries and take the credit upon theirs though. A brass fire piston from Sweden was recorded to be on display in the Nordiska Museum in Stockholm while one is seen in Pennsylvania, US. (I forgot about this reference!)
This article was written in 1900 and stated that they were reintroduced in France in the recent years, in a pocket version. They are displayed at Ethnological Museum in Cambridge and Rome, the British Museum, Berlin, Liverpool, Horniman, Pitts-River Museum of Oxford.
FRENCH-INDO CHINA A fire-piston in the Edinburgh Museum was obtained from the Khas (or Kumuks), an aboriginal hill tribe of low status, inhabiting the country North of Luang Prabang, which lies on the Mekong River in Lat. 20 degrees North. ….Further to the South East, the implement is again met with amongst the Mois, a people of very low culture inhabiting the tablelands and mountains between the Mekong River and the coast of Annam, from the frontier of Yunnan to Cochin China. They differ radically from the Annamese and the Thai and are said by Deniker to belong probably to the ‘Indonesian’ stock.
They also say that there is no evidence that the Chinese even knew of the fire piston. The closest where the Siamese and the Burmese.
Another thing I find interesting is that there were very primitive fire pistons found amongst the Kachins. He continues to say that they were natural bamboo bores (not polished) and were unlikely to actually have any compression compared to the "packed fire piston." This is interesting because he may have been looking at one of the earliest fire pistons. Having been around fire pistons so much, I think I understand this. The gasket used would have been able to provide the seal anyhow. Darrel and Jeff make two very different fire pistons. Darrel goes for a close fitting bore, where the rod slides slowly down the bore with a gasket that is just barely proud of the rod and aids in providing a seal. Jeff’s rods are looser in his bore, the string gasket is thicker to make up the difference, providing the majority of the seal. The theory here is that the gasket will provide all the seal needed and be more flexible in adjusting to variations in the bore to maintain that compression. Darrel does not have the variations so for him, this is not necessary. In theory, if you look at the primitive loose piston and the more precise piston, both were used primitively, though later the tighter piston was preferred because of higher reliability. I have seen a rod very loose in a bore work, though not as consistently, with a thick gasket.
If you are looking for the pictures at the end, they start on page 51. Then there is a blank page and page i starts. Total, there are 4 pages of pictures so keep on scrolling down.
Becky
... They probably call it ´bambou percussion´ or something like that.
