THE 



AMERICAN NATURALIST. 



Vol. xvi. — APRIL, 1882. — No. 4. 

 MOUND PIPES. 



TT is impossible to determine what was the earliest form of the 

 -*- tobacco-pipe. The oldest examples of which we possess any 

 knowledge, have been exhumed from some of the mounds of the 

 Mississippi valley. These are usually made of stone of great 

 hardness, but we have no reason to believe that this material was 

 always employed in their manufacture. It is not to be supposed 

 that the symmetrical and highly-finished specimens which the 

 mounds have produced were the results of the first savage con- 

 ception of the narcotic utensil. Indeed, it is more than probable 

 that the most ancient pipes were rudely fashioned from wood or 

 other perishable substances, all traces Of which have long since 

 disappeared. 



The earliest stone pipes from the mounds were " always carved 

 from a single piece, and consist of a flat curved base, of variable 

 length and width, with the bowl rising from the center of the 

 convex side. From one of the ends, and communicating with 

 the hollow of the bowl, is drilled a small hole, which answers 

 the purpose of a tube ; the corresponding opposite division 

 being left for the manifest purpose of holding the implement 

 to the mouth." 1 It would be difficult to conceive of any 

 other form so admirably adapted to the purpose for which it 

 was designed. Such pipes are not only models of compactness, 

 but are, in many instances, highly ornamental, and in all proba- 

 bility totemic. In the majority of these "platform" pipes, the 

 stem perforation, which is always straight, is so minute as to pre- 

 clude the possibility of the insertion of an additional stem. The 



1 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi valley, p. 228. 



