MEERSCHAUM PIPES. 151 
mines from six to eight miles southeast of Eskis chehr, on 
the river Pursak chief tributary to the river Sagarius. They 
were known to Xenophon, and are now worked principally 
by Armenian Christians, who sink narrow pits, to the beds 
of this mineral, and work the sides out until water or immi- 
nent danger drives them away to try another place. Some 
meerschaum comes from Brussa, and in 1869 over 3,000 
boxes of raw material were imported from Asia Minor at 
Trieste, with 345,000 florins. The pipe manufacture and 
carving is principally carried on in eee and in Rhula, 
Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The commercial value of 
meerschaum carving at these places may be estimated at 
$2,000,000 annually. However very large quantities of them 
are not made from genuine but artificial material. The 
waste from these carvings is ground to a very fine powder, 
and then boiled with linseed oil and alum. When this 
mixture has sufficient cohesion, it is cast in molds and care- 
fully dried and carved, as if these blocks of mineral had been 
natural. It is said that about one-half of all pipes now sold 
are made from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of 
the lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks 
have been made of ‘it so light that they would float on ‘the 
top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the 
quality of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time 
than others this is owing in a great measure however to the 
thickness of the bowl.” 
Pipe-colorers, who go around coloring pipes or meer- 
schaums, pride themselves on the rapidity with which they 
are enabled to color a pipe. The following, on “Pipe 
Colorers,” is from “ The Tobacco Plant”: 
“There are men who pride themselves upon the skill with 
which they are able to color the pipes they smoke. Some of 
these are amateurs, who smoke Tobacco only with the view 
of gratifying that taste for color which is satisfied when a 
bowl of clay or meerschaum is sufficiently yellowed, browned, 
or blacked: There are men who care nothing for Tobacco 
of itself, and would be much more easily and rationally 
pleased were they to set their pipes upon an easel and paint 
them with oils and camel’s-hair. Others of the class are 
professional colorers, who hire themselves to pipe-sellers or 
connoisseurs by the week, or day, or hour, to smoke so many 
ounces or pounds of strong Tobacco through such and such 
pipes in such and such a time, with the view of causing such 
