question_answer

           

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Though many animals can become accustomed to the presence of fire, man alone has learned to produce, to maintain and to control it. Primitive man, however, was probably more concerned with fire as a source of warmth and as a means of cooking food than as a source of light. From the study of fire-myths and the cultures of primitive races, it is usually presumed that fire was first obtained from such natural sources as volcanoes, bush fires, lightning, sparks struck from stones, or dry branches rubbing together in the wind. Before the man discovered less laborious ways of making fire, he had to preserve it, and whenever he went on a journey he carried a fire band with him. His discovery that the fire band, from which the torch may very well have developed, could be used for illumination was probably incidental to the primary purpose of preserving a flame.

Lamps, too, probably developed by accident. Early man may have had his first conception of a lamp while watching a twig or fibre burning in the molten fat dropped from a roasting carcass. All he had to do was to fashion a vessel to contain fat and float a lighted reed in it. Such lamps, which were made of hollowed stones or sea shells, have persisted in identical form up to quite recent times.

By 'primary' the author means:

A) Primitive

B) Fundamental     

C) Elemental

D) Essential

E) None of these