424 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897 



The subject of primitive fire making has been exhaustively treated 

 by Dr. Walter Hough, of Washington City.' 



The size and shape of some pipes are more indicative of their owners' 

 occupation than (me at first glance would be inclined to suppose. 

 Nomads or hunters, for example, without fixed dwelling places, would 

 not employ the ponderous pipes often found along the shores of the 

 Mississippi River and in the Southern States, weighing at times many 

 pounds, and often carved in the form of some bird or animal. Unless 

 carried by canoe they would constitute a serious problem in the move- 

 ments of a family. There may also be a serious doubt whether the 

 delicately made pottery i^ipes of the Southern States and the equally 

 carefully shaped specimens from northern New York, showing at times 

 a thin bird's bill 2 or 3 inches above the bowl, were not necessarily the 

 property of people living in permanent habitations. 



PIPE BOWLS WITHOUT STEMS. 



There are many ways of accounting for the evolution of the tubular 

 pipe into one of a rectangular shape. The smoking of the tube would 

 undoubtedly be extremely awkward, and notwithstanding the pebble 

 or pellet of pottery dropped into the bowl, the material smoked would 

 escape into the smokers mouth while being held perpendicularly as 



though drinking, while an accidental or 

 intentional curve would suggest a valuable 

 improvement in shape. 



Mr. Clarence B. Moore found on the 

 St. Johns River, Florida, a tubular pipe 

 slightly curved and made of pottery with 

 the elliptical cross section, which shai)e 

 may well have been caused in drying the 

 clay before burning. There is a tubular 

 pipe of steatite in the collection of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania curved slightly in 

 its longitudinal section, as is the California 

 specimen herein illustrated. 



Having considered the tubular pipe, 

 which consisted of a stem and bowl in the 

 same plane, we shall next discuss those 

 pipes consisting of a bowl alone, its walls being perforated for the 

 insertion of a separate stem. Whether this pipe should come next in 

 order is open to question. In this type ordinarily the stem hole is 

 approximately one-third the greatest diameter of the bowl, though 

 there are as a matter of course rare exceptions to the rule where 

 these diameters differ. 



Fig. 40 is of this type, yet it would readily pass for one of recent pro- 

 duction. It was found in Oregon, collected by Mr. T. Carver ; it is drilled 

 from a cube of volcanic tuff, which to a casual observer might well pass 



Fig. 46. 

 PIPE BOWL OF VOLCANIC TUFF. 



Oregon. 



Cat.No. 12sa, U.S.N. M. Collected by T.Carver 



' Smithsonian Kcport, 1<S88, p. 531. 



