112 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



carelessly destroyed. It is hoped that a few early Mohawk and 

 Onondaga sites may yield much of high value in this way, should the 

 state provide means for painstaking research. It is matter of con- 

 gratulation that so much has been already secured, but this initial 

 work only shows how important is the field, and how much may be 

 done. 



CLAY TOBACCO PIPES 



In an article on the ' Antiquity of the tobacco pipe in Europe,' 

 by Edwin A. Barber, printed in the American antiquarian in 1879, 

 he says, ' It has for some time been a matter of dispute among 

 antiquaries whether the custom of tobacco smoking originated in 

 the eastern or the western continent; but of late years America has 

 been generally accepted as the birthplace of the art.' The great 

 quantities of small clay pipes recently found in Great Britain, known 

 in England as fairy pipes, in Scotland as Celtic or elfin pipes, and in 

 Ireland as Danes' pipes, he said had revived the question. Some 

 had been found close to Roman remains, and thus it had been 

 claimed that they were Roman relics of the second century. Other 

 recent articles found with them disproved this theory. Sir Daniel 

 Wilson, of Toronto, fairly discussed this question in his Prehistoric 

 man, and arrived at this conclusion. In Fairholt's Tobacco; its his- 

 tory and associations, the subject is also treated, and he sums up by 

 saying, ' We may be certain no authenticated discovery of Celtic or 

 Roman antiquities, where the ground has been entirely undisturbed, 

 includes tobacco i)ipes.' Mr Barber thought the fairy pipes of 

 Ireland the oldest form known in Great Britain. 



There seems little doubt, however, that smoking was known in 

 Europe before Raleigh's time, though perhaps little more than this, 

 for King James, in 1603, said ' It is not so long since the first entry 

 of this abuse amongst us here, as this present age can very well 

 remember both the first author and forms of its introduction.' 

 Capt. John Smith, who loved the weed, gives Ralph Lane credit for 

 its introduction into England. ' More by token that Lane brought 

 with him that blessed herb tobacco, and was the first man that 

 brought it to England; and yet have I heard men say, some that it 

 was Drake, others that it was Raleigh. Nor are they altogether 

 wrong, for if Raleigh had not sent Lane out, and Drake had not 



