A DYAK'S " DIESEL " METHOD OF IGNITING TINDER.
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THE PRINciPLE el ignition used in the Diesel engine, where highly compressed air generates sufficient heat to cause combustion, does not seem to be as new as one would imagine. "The Wild Man of Borneo," according to accounts of travellers in that country, •of which one has heard so much in song and story, has used the principle io
primitive form for generations. . Adoardo Baecari, in his "Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo," describes what he calls " The production of fire by pneumatic pressure." He describes an instrument used, by the Dyaks {the head-hunting tribe of Borneo) for the purpose of producing fire, which shows that these primitive people were in possession of knowledge, which might have anticipated Diesel.
That writer says; " A little tinder is plated at the bottom of a closed metal tube, which .is fitted with a. piston. A, smart blow on the latter compresses rite air, and is sufficient to ignite the tinder. The same method is in use in Burma. They use. for tinderthe soft, cottony down which clothes the base of the young fronds of some form of palms." Other writers have described' the same method, They 'do not; however; say whether the cylinder was ground intern'tally --or--whether tne, piston. Was fitted with rings