The student uses in the course of the day, different pipes. In the morning he gladly smokes out of a Turkish pipe, if such a one is at his command. This has a small mouth-piece, a long tube, and a meerschaum head, which gives it its greater value. It is on this account so highly esteemed; the student asserting that no pipe smokes so pleasantly; but its price, if it be genuine, varies from two to six, or more, Louisdores. The material out of which the real meerschaum head is made, is dug in Spain, Portugal, and the ancient Thebes, and consists of a silicious clay, in chemical combination with water. The other heads are made of various materials, and the most usual are of porcelain or wedgewood. The meerschaum, called by the Turks (Myrsen, Keffekil), the material out of which the ancient Samian vessels were made, is yet used in Turkey for the manufacture of pipe-heads; of which only the smaller kinds are allowed to be exported. It is chiefly dug in ancient Thebes, and is by no means employed in its crude state, but undergoes a manipulation, similar to that of the porcelain paste. It is exposed to a certain process of fermentation; the softened mass is diluted and washed, then half dried, pressed in moulds, and bored whilst in them. The heads thus formed are then dried in the shade, and afterwards hard burnt in the furnace. After this they are boiled in milk, then in linseed oil or wax, and finally polished with Dutch rush (equisetum) and leather. The finest formed heads--washed ware--may not be exported, although the Turks on the whole prefer the heads made from burnt Bole. As the Turkish heads are not considered handsome in shape, and have too narrow a bore, they are again turned and rebored at Ruhia in the district of Gotha, and being brought to a more modern form, are then boiled in tallow or wax, and again polished. The turnings are used in the preparation of imitation meerschaum heads, which are more brittle and less lasting than the real ones. In these heads manufactured in Lemgo, there is no real meerschaum clay used, but a mixture of clay, chalk, and egg-shells. These heads are heavier and more frangible than the genuine; they more readily become rough and unclean, and take a metallic streak from gold or silver, which is not the case with meerschaum heads.--_Leonhard's Oryktognosie_.