248 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



material is shown by the fact that a large tusk may furnish 

 only one half its total weight in balls, while in the case 

 of a tusk, the diameter of which but very slightly exceeds 

 the standard diameter of a Vjall, only from 20 per cent, to 

 30 per cent, of the material will be lost. 



As we have noted, the finest balls — first-class material — 

 are retailed at about $16 for each ball. There are three 

 of these in the modern game, while in the older game four 

 are used; in pocket billiards, or "pool," sixteen balls are 

 used. However, the balls for this latter game are fre- 

 quently made of some of the substitutes for ivory; other- 

 wise, since fifty balls are sold for pool to a single one for 

 billiards, the ivory supply would prove so far short of the 

 demand that an ivory ball would soon be worth $75 instead 

 of $16 as at present. Soft ivory is almost exclusively 

 used in the manufacture of billiard balls for the American 

 and European markets, if we except the case of some South 

 American countries where the trade occasionally demands 

 hard ivory, under the impression that climatic changes fa- 

 vour its use in those latitudes. 



As it is of supreme importance that the centre of each 

 ball shall be the true centre of the tusk from which it is 

 cut, it is eminently desirable that the tusk's diameter 

 should not greatly exceed that of the ball; sometimes a 

 smaller ball will be cut from the centre of a larger one. It 

 was found by actual experiment that if a number of balls 

 were cut from a large tusk, that is to say, two, three, or four, 

 from an exceptionally broad tusk, none of them having a 

 centre corresponding with the centre of the tusk, the ivory 

 material did not have an equal density, and while possessing 

 the normal resiliency did not have the true rebound. It 

 was found that no true and accurate shot could be made 

 with such a ball, and although the expert billiard player, 

 Slosson, greatly admired these balls, their appearance 



