The material for pipes mostly sought after by the natives is the beautiful and easily wrought red sandstone of the Coteau des Prairies. The calumet, which plays an important part in their civil and religious observances, is made from this source, chiefly on account of the legend respecting its origin and the origin of smoking, mentioned in the first chapter. One can hardly help seeing in the handiwork shown in the make of these curious smoking instruments points of contact with the social condition and intelligence of the makers. From the short nostril tube of the Caribs to the feathered peace-pipe of the continental tribes is an advancement in the social scale, such as we see in the difference between the hole in the ground for a bowl made by natives of central India, who use a leaf for a tube, and the richly adorned chibouk of the Turk. This view affords us a glimpse of primitive man struggling to adapt his surroundings to his needs, according to the degree of intelligence to which he has attained. The ordinary pipe so extensively used in England is made from white clay, found chiefly at Purbeck, in Dorsetshire, and Newton Abbot, in Devonshire. But, in recent years, the heath briar-root of France for pipes has come largely into use. Perhaps no material for pipe bowls stands in higher favour than meerschaum—a fine, white clay consisting chiefly of magnesia, silica and water. The best kinds are found in pits in the Crimea and along the peninsula of Heracleati in Asia Minor. It is soft and porous: the finest specimens are almost transparent. When first taken out of the pits it makes lather like soap-suds. The workmen employed in digging it up say that if left for long lying about it forms itself into froth. Thus the foam of the sea of past ages, driven by the winds into sheltered cavities and hollow places of the earth, comes at last to render service to St Nicotine; and in our meditative moods is brought vividly before the mind the fabled birth of the goddess of love, laughter and beauty. According to the old Greek myth it was just off the coast of Paphos (Cyprus) that Aphrodite arose from amid sea-foam that covered the mutilated body of old, sleepy, Uranus, who in a drowsy moment had rolled down the cliff into the sea. Springing thus into being she was seen by the three daughters of Zeus (the seasons) who carried her to Olympus, and all the gods admired her for her beauty. There are connoisseurs who fancy that the meerschaum pipes coming from this region impart to the tobacco a peculiarly delicate flavour. Constantinople is the great mart for the sale of meerschaum, as Vienna is for its manufacture into pipes. The material is so extremely difficult to manipulate that the uncertainty attending its successful manufacture gives a high value to the better kinds. The meerschaum is soaked in water for twenty-four hours and then turned in a lathe. In this process the clay often proves to be too porous, and is on this account rejected: this