196 ST NICOTINE 



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 

 afifords 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 



