^RTIFtCIAL HALOS. 
503 ' 
Calumet. 
The Calumet is a symbolical instrument of great importance amofig 
the American Indians. It is a pipe, whose bowl is generally made 
of a soft red marble ; the tube, of a very long reed, ornamented with 
wings and feathers of birds. No affair of consequence is transacted 
without the calumet. It appears ia meetings of commerce or exchange, 
in congresses for determining peace or war, and even in the very 
fury of battle. The acceptance of the calumet is a mark of concur- 
rence with the terms proposed ; as the refusal is a certain mark of 
rejection. Even in the rage of a conflict, this pipe is sometimes 
offered ; and if accepted, the weapons of destruction instantly d^op 
from their hands, and a truce ensues. It seems the sacrament of 
savages, for no compact is ever violated which is confirmed by a 
whiff from this holy reed. 
When they treat of war, the pipe and all its ornaments are usually 
red, or sometimes red only on one side. The size and decorations 
of the calumet are for the most part proportioned to the quality of 
the persons to whom they are presented, and to the importance of the 
occasion. The calumet of peace is different from that of war. They 
make use of the former to seal their alliances and treaties, to travel 
with safety, and to receive strangers ; but of the latter, to proclaim 
war. The calumet of peace consists of a red stone, like marble, 
formed into a cavity resembling the head of a tobacco pipe, and fixed 
to a hollow reed. They adorn it with feathers of various colours ; 
and name it the calumet of the sun, to which luminary they present 
it, in expectation of thereby obtaining a change of weather as often 
as they desire. 
From the winged ornaments of the calumet, and its conciliating 
uses, writers compare it to the eaduceus of Mercury, which was 
carried by the cadiiceatores of peace, with terms to the hostile states. 
It is singular, that the most remote nations, and the most opposite 
in their other customs and manners, should in some things have, 
as it were, a certain consent of thought. The Greeks and the Ame- 
ricans had the same idea, in the invention of the eaduceus and the 
calumet. 
Artificial Halos. 
Halos may be produced by placing a lighted candle in the midst 
of steam in cold water. If a glass window be breathed upon, and the 
flame of a candle be placed some feet from it, while the spectator is 
also at a distance from some other part of the window, the flame will 
be surrounded with a coloured halo. And if a candle be placed be- 
hind a glass receiver, when air is admitted into the vacuum wfithin it 
at a certain degree of density, the vapour with which it is loaded 
will make a coloured halo rounA the flame. This was observed by 
Otto Guericke. 
In Dec. 1756, M. Muschenbroeck observed, that when the glass 
windows of his room were covered with a thin plate of ice on the 
inside, the moon appearing through it was surrounded with a variously 
