XXXI 



IVORY 



403 



In Great Britain the best ivory is used for making 

 billiard balls, but the largest tusks are bought for the 

 American market. Fifty per cent, of ivory imported 

 into America is used for piano keys and in India for 

 making bangles. The best tusks fetch in the open 

 market 68-70 per hundredweight. A visit to an 



Iron ball projecting into the pulp 

 chamber of an elephant's tusk. 

 (Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons, England.) 



ivory sale teaches that even chips are too valuable to 

 waste, for when calcined in a close vessel they furnish 

 charcoal ; this, known as ivory black, forms a pigment 

 for oil and water-colours, also an ink for printing 

 engravings. 



Some notion of the life of an ivory trader, with 

 which slave-trading was also combined, may be gathered 

 from a perusal of Bode's Life of Tippoo Tib. When 

 this enterprising Arab raided Nsama's country, among 



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