Some of the largest tusks in the Grote vaults are six inches in diameter at the base; and the tusk at the door of this firm, on 14th Street, used as a business sign, is nearly nine feet in length. This house manufactures almost every article that ivory can be made into; and objects ranging from billiard-balls to flat spatulas, for testing flour, may be seen in their cases. Billiard-balls require the choicest kind of ivory. The best are made here, and sell at five dollars each. I believe the Chinese have alone successfully produced the famous concentric balls of ivory, for which they have been so long and justly famous. Nothing is wasted in the ivory-shop. Even the dust is collected, and sold to the New-York florists, who claim that its results upon roses and other choice flowers are astonishing. It is also used in tempering certain steel tools, and in the manufacture of some acids. To respond to this great demand, many professional ivory-hunters are constantly in the field. In a single season a small party have obtained twenty thousand pounds of ivory; for which they received twenty thousand dollars at Khartoom, or one dollar per pound. The tusks of elephants differ much in size; and, to show the loss in wear, Holub states that the wear on a pair of African tusks in the animal’s lifetime may equal six pounds,—the ivory being ground down when the animal uproots trees, and uses them in similar ways. In the Abyssinian and Taba regions, tusks rarely exceed forty pounds, and average only about twenty-five. In Equatorial Africa they average about forty pounds, and range up to one hundred and fifty.