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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and reeds for the poor ; and all draw and 

 puff their smoke with equal pleasure. The 

 form and size of the bowls dejjend more or 

 less on what is smoked, and the fashion of 

 smoking. And what is smoked? Tobacco 

 by the Europeans of Europe and America — 

 when it is not something else under that 

 name. And these are as nothing in compari- 

 son with the hundreds of millions of Asiatics 

 and other hundreds of millions of Africans 

 who use opium, hemp, toadstools, rose leaves, 

 tea leaves, cabbage leaves, and what not. 

 We might say that everything is smoked, ex- 

 cept tobacco. While tobacco pipes are gen- 

 erally of moderate capacity, some German 

 and Danish smokers use pipe bowls nine or 

 ten inches long and wide in proportion, and 

 there are pipes in Africa and Damascus that 

 will hold nearly a pound. There are pipes 

 of two and more bowls, some Dutch seven- 

 teenth-century pipes with six and seven 

 bowls, each having an elaborately shaped 

 stem, being mentioned by M. de Watteville ; 

 and other pipes having several stems. The 

 stems vary in length from the stubby pipe 

 that the workman can smoke as he works, 

 to the elongated six- or eight-foot coiled 

 tubes of the Oriental nargilehs. The length 

 of the stem is partly a matter of climate: 

 short stems for cold countries, long for hot 

 ones. The decorations of pipes are subject 

 to the caprices of fancy and the prevailing 

 fashion. Some Oriental pipes are fairly worth 

 their weight in gold by virtue of the jewels 

 with which they are adorned. They often 

 bear coats of arms or a political device, like 

 a cigar holder of the German Kulturkampf 

 period, on which Bismarck was represented 

 as a shoemaker. At every inhalation the fig- 

 ure raised its right arm and brought its ham- 

 mer heavily down upon the back of a priest. 



History in Minerals. — Palseomineralogy 

 is the name which M. J. Thoulet has given 

 to the study of the traces that events have 

 left upon minerals, by means of which we 

 may leam facts in the past history of the 

 rock, whether it be a few days or months or 

 thousands of years old. It aims to reconsti- 

 tute the geography of the earth in its most 

 remote epochs, in attempting which we have 

 to take cognizance of the most minute de- 

 tails, as we would do in exploring a hitherto 

 unknown island. The methodd of this branch 



of investigation are illustrated by the studies 

 of Sorby on the formation of liquid inclu- 

 sions in crystals ; by those of Des Cloiseaux 

 and Maillard on the optical deformation of 

 minerals, as a result of which we are able to 

 ascertain whether the feldspar in the rocks 

 has or has not been subjected to a red heat. 

 Other experiments, physical and mechanical, 

 permit us to read similar lessons in the his- 

 tory of minerals. Thus Daubree, after study- 

 ing the effects of wearing upon pebbles, re- 

 marked that " every grain of sand bears its 

 history inscribed upon it." In this way M. 

 Redgers traced the origin of the dunes of 

 Holland to the Scandinavian rocks. Rela- 

 tions have been discovered between the 

 shapes of grains of sand and the velocity of 

 the currents in which they have been carried 

 and the distance. The length of time the 

 grain has been exposed to the action of 

 water is a subject for further study ; and it 

 is hoped that it will be possible some time, 

 by the examination of the fossils contained 

 in a specimen, to determine the probable 

 depth of the water adjacent to the deposits ; 

 and from the lessons furnished by a piece 

 of limestone, for instance, to reconstitute 

 the geological ocean in which it originated, 

 estimating the dimensions of the sea, the 

 force and direction of the currents and 

 waves and of the winds that blow over it, 

 and the depth of the water, its temperature, 

 salinity, and density — all, in short, that we 

 are only beginning to learn concerning our 

 present seas. 



Cnstoms of Demerara Negroes. — The 



Demerara boatman, Mr. J. Rodway says, 

 " has great powers of endurance. He can 

 paddle for hour after hour, often against the 

 stream, until you wonder how he bears such 

 a strain. But when his work is done he falls 

 asleep in almost any position. Under the 

 burning rays of a cloudless sun which would 

 blister your face he sprawls down in the 

 bateau and sleeps like a dog." With his in- 

 clination to sleep during the day the negro 

 will spend the night in gossip, dancing, or 

 singing, and often in such a way as to be a 

 nuisance to his neighbors. Such he is in his 

 wakes, when fifty or a hundred people will 

 gather in the yard, there being no room in 

 the house, and, beginning with hymns and 

 going on after midnight to songs and games, 



