Patent for a new and improved fire starter. This design "has for its object to provide novel means for making comparatively inexpensive fire-kindlers; and to such end the invention consists, essentially, in a vessel having two chambers, one capable of being opened at the top and adapted to contain ashes, and the other closed, except as to a bottom passage in communication with the ash-chamber, and adapted to contain a combustible fluid—such as petroleum oil or other liquid hydro-carbon—which flows through the said bottom passage to saturate the ashes and prepare them for use" (lines 8-20).

Patent for a new and improved fire starter. This design "is to provide novel means for determining when the oil is exhausted from the oil vessel and to provide novel means for keeping the ashes from direct contact with the oil-supply openings . . . [for] ashes possess great capillary attraction and take up more hydro-carbon fluid than is requisite when the ashes are dry and not tightly packed, so that the ashes become soft and mushy" (lines 12-21).