Old Plymouth Trails Part 13

I do not take it kindly of old Ben Franklin that he, almost an hundred years ago, with his Poor Richard wisdom taught us to economize our fuel by shutting up our fire in stoves, for what we gained in the flesh we lost in the spirit, and it is good that in the modern house, however mechanically complicated the heating apparatus, we build fireplaces once again that our souls may be warmed with the sight of the flame. The impulse to worship fire still lingers within us and though we have better creeds than that of Zoroaster and truer spiritual ideals than the Pa.r.s.ees we can have no more appealing symbol of the purely spiritual than flame.

Phlogiston might well be another word for soul and we are unkind to the old philosophers to take them too literally. The alchemists were dreamers rather than doers after all, and though it is the fashion to laud the doers it is often the dreamers that see most clearly. As the flame leapt upward from the burning wood they saw in it a rare, pure, ethereal substance which they called Phlogiston.

Nor did they yield their theory when Lavoisier claimed to disprove it by burning phosphorus in oxygen and weighing the result, which was heavier than the phosphorus had been. Thereupon the world derided the alchemists and lauded Lavoisier whose experiments laid the foundation for the intricate science of modern chemistry. For all that, science gives us the truth only from one angle and the science of one age is often disproved by the science of the next.

Modern chemists may agree on what happens when phosphorus burns, but many a theory of Lavoisier's day has been disproved in its turn. A thousand scientists have declared flying impossible to man, yet today men fly. Lavoisier was right, no doubt. Combustion is the combination of an element with oxygen. He proved that with his chemist's balance. Yet how did he prove that some imponderable element does not leap from wood in flame? As well say that when a man dies the spirit has not left the body because he weighs the same. Watching the falling embers of the Yule log leap into flames before they turn gray, I am apt to think that the intuition of the alchemists touched a truth that the chemical apparatus missed. You cannot measure its reaction on the mind of man or weigh the results, but they are there.

Wood was the sole fuel of the New England pioneers for two centuries. In fact in many a remote farmhouse it is today, and the fathers soon found by use which kind lighted quickest and which burned longest and with the most steady heat, facts which the subtle a.n.a.lysis of the chemists only confirmed. The conifers light most readily and burn rapidly with the greatest heat in a given time. The hard woods burn longest, some of them retaining fire for a surprising length of time under just the right conditions. The woodsmen will tell you that the pines light easily and burn fiercely because of the pitch they contain. This is true but the chemists have added another reason. Pine gives off much hydrogen when heated and this light and inflammable gas gives much flame.

Even in pine wood which does not seem resinous to the touch there is much of this volatile inflammable material and a good store of pine kindlings is a first requisite in every well ordered country household. Of the hard woods hickory is easily king as a fire holder. Yet the oaks, white and red, and the sugar and black maples are not far behind in value. Our American white ash and elm rank well up with the oaks, so does beech, while the softer woods fall behind. Moreover, trees grown on high, droughty, barren soil show greater heating power than those of the same variety which happen to stand in rich, but moister soil.

Long ago an American chemist confirmed what the practical experience of the woodman had already decided. Marcus Bull's table of the heating value of American woods is as follows: s.h.a.gbark hickory, 100; white oak, 81; red oak, 68; sugar maple, 60; red maple, 54; white ash, 77; chestnut, 52; white beech, 65; black birch, 63; white birch, 48; pitch pine, 43; white pine, 42.

Wood, according to the chemists, is a carbohydrate and the greater the proportion of carbon which it contains the greater is its heat-giving value, the greater the proportion of hydrogen the greater the output of ruddy flames. Yet chemists, who are so sure the alchemists had no ground for their beliefs, do not always agree among themselves. Professor Bull's table of the heat-giving properties of the various woods has been declared inaccurate by other chemists, in spite of the fact that experience in actual use bears it out in many particulars. Again, either the chemists of Europe are at variance with ours or else their trees are, for Gottlieb's table of the heat-giving properties of European trees of similar varieties turns ours upside down. Gottlieb's table of calorics puts oak at the bottom of the list and pine at the top.

It is as follows: Oak, 46.20; ash, 47.11; elm, 47.28; beech, 47.74; birch, 47.71; fir, 50-35; pine, 50.85.

There is a certain interest in all this, but to him who lights the Yule log on Christmas Eve it probably matters little. He knows that pine will kindle his fire readily and that one of the hard woods will hold it longest. He knows that out of the leaping flames, whether they be composed of phlogiston or incandescent hydrogen, loved fancies flashed into the minds of the elder race, born of the flicker of flame on the imagination of a primitive people, backed by dark forests, night and wind-riding storms. If he have the hardihood let him light his Yule log in the winter twilight of the snowy woods. He will do well to pick a spot where a dense growth of pines shelters him from the wind and a steep ledge makes for him fireplace and chimney at once. Then it does not matter if the snow is deep on the ground and the air filled with flying flakes; his hearth may soon glow with comfort. Even from a materialistic point of view the ancients did well to worship fire. Out of it was to come more or less directly all the material progress of the race toward civilization.

The pines, whose presence in the woods is always a benediction, stand ready with the best fire kindling in the world. Their twigs light at the flare of a match. The larger limbs will fire from these and send flames leaping high. On a fire well started thus between backlog and forestick he may pile such dry, hard wood as he has at hand. The forest will give him plenty if he is on friendly terms with it. The forest will give him more, too. Out of its mysterious darkness will slip easily into his mind the old-time loved and half-forgotten legends that grew out of the winter night in the twilight of the early days of the Aryan race. At the time of the winter solstice it was the custom of the G.o.ds to leave their dwellings in heaven and come down to earth. In the shout of the wind in the pines he may well hear Wotan riding overhead in his gray cloak and broad-brimmed hat pressed low over his face.

He may glimpse his white steed whirling by and see plainly in the upflaring light of his fire the army of white souls that scurries behind the winter-G.o.d as he rides on his way. Black eagles fly with him and the wolves of the air gallop on before. The world-ash was a gigantic evergreen in whose branches were the abodes of giants and dwarfs as well as men and G.o.ds. Screened by night within the forest this tree may well be near with the springs of being and non-being within its roots and the Nornen sitting by, silent and grave. He may catch the gleam of the eyes of Loki as the firelight glints on the frost crystals among the snow-laden branches. Thus easily does a thousand years of civilization slip from us when face to face with night and the forest.

Yet if night and the winter ghosts of old ride just beyond the circle of his firelight, within it he is in the magic ring of comfort and safety. Around the Yule logs of centuries the race has warmed its heart as well as its hands, its soul as well as its body, and the old G.o.ds of terror have become the saints of good will. Out of the winter night Wotan steps into the light of the Yule fire, transformed into St. Nicholas, the very spirit of genial generosity. If we will go from our forest vigil to the hearth in any home we will find the world-ash, no longer weird and awesome with the fates sitting silent at its foot, but transformed into the very symbol of light and happiness and cheer, the Christmas tree. In the light of twenty centuries around the Yule log we have forgotten to be afraid and have made out of our weird dreams friendly fancies. Where once the fearsome dragon twined about the sun-tree we simulate his folds with strings of pop-corn.

The unquenchable lights that flamed upon its twigs are now twinkling candles. The sun, moon and stars that once were the symbolic fruit grow again in tinsel ornament and, where we follow the legend closely, Eikthyner the stag, Heidrun the goat, Freyer's boar and Wotan's ravens and wolves, are hung in tiny effigy as confectioner's sweets. Thus with the Christmas tree alight and with the Yule log on the hearth we symbolize the old worship of the sun-tree and of fire through which we have grown to the better faith of which Christmas is one great commemorative festival.

THE END