Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/663

Rh the bottle, and by being drawn through the coil of tube frequently some yards in length. The bottles are in many cases made of carved and otherwise ornamented coco-nut shells, whence the apparatus is called nārgīla, from nārgil, a coconut. Silver, gold, damascened steel and precious stones are freely used in the making and decoration of these pipes for wealthy smokers.

Pipe Manufacture.—The regular pipe-making industries divide into many branches, of which the more important are the clay p1 pe, meerschaum (real and artificial), and wooden bowl trades. Clay pipes are made in prodigious numbers by hand labour with an iron mould and a steel w1re for forming the tube of the stem. Pipe-moulding is a very simple operation in pottery, and the work is performed with astonishing celerity. A number of machines have been devised for automatic pipe-moulding; but the manual operations are so rapid and inexpensive that there is little margin for saving by the substitution of machinery. The pipes are very slightly fired so as to keep them soft and porous; and so cheaply made are they that the commoner kinds can be retailed at a profit for a farthing each. The principal early centres of the clay-pipe industry were at Broseley in Staffordshire, where the trade has been established since the early part of the 17th century, and at Amesbury in Wiltshire. The manufacture is still carried on at Broseley. Meerschaum pipes (see ) are the luxury of the European smoker. The favourite wooden pipe generally known as a br1arwood or braar-root pipe is really made from the roots of the tree heath, Erica arborea (Fr. bruyère) principally obtained on the hills of the Maremma and taken thence to Leghorn. There the roots are shaped into blocks each suitable for a pipe, the cutting of the wood so as to avoid waste requiring considerable skill. These blocks are simmered in a vat for twelve hours, which gives them the much-appreciated yellowish-brown hue of a good “ briar-root.” So prepared the blocks are exported for boring and finishing. Many devices have been invented for the purpose of preventing the nicotine liquor from reaching the smoker's mouth or collecting in and fouling the pipe.

PIPE TABOR (Fr. galoubet; Ger. Schwegel or Stamentienpfeiff), a popular medieval combination of a small pipe or flageolet, and a small drum. The pipe consists of a cylindrical tube of narrow bore, pierced with three holes, two in front and one at the back, all very near the end of the pipe; and of a mouthpiece of the kind known as whistle, fipple or beak common to the flûtes à bec or recorder family. The compass of this instrument, with no more than three holes, exceeds two octaves in the hands of a good player, and is chromatic throughout. The fundamental notes of the open pipe and of the three holes cannot be produced; the scale consists, therefore, entirely of harmonics, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of the series being easily obtained, and, by half stopping the holes, also the semitones which are required to complete the chromatic scale. The tabor being fastened to the performer's left elbow, the hands remained free, the right beating the little drum with a stick to mark the rhythm, while the left held and fingered the pipe with thumb and first two fingers. (K. S.)

PIPE-FISHES (Syngnathina), small fishes, which with the Sea-horses form a distinct family, Syngnathidae, of Lophobranchiate

Thoracostei. The name is derived from the peculiar form of their snout, which is produced into a more or less long tube, ending in a

narrow and small mouth which opens upwards and is toothless.



1. &mdash; Syngnathus acus, Male, with sub-caudal pouch.

The body and tail are long and thin, snake-like, encased in hard integuments which are divided into regularly arranged segments. This dermal skeleton shows several longitudinal ridges, so that a vertical section through the body represents an angular figure, not round or oval as in the majority of other fishes. A dorsal fin is always present, and is the principal (in some species, the only) organ of locomotion. The ventral fins are as constantly absent, and the other fins may or may not be developed. The gill-openings are extremely small and placed near the upper posterior angle of the gill-cover. Most of the pipe-fishes are marine, only a few being fluviatile. Pipe-fishes are abundant on such coasts of the tropical and temperate zones as offer by their vegetation shelter to these defenceless creatures. They are very bad swimmers, slowly moving through the water by means of the rapid undulatory movement of the dorsal fin. Their tail, even when provided with a caudal fin, is of no use in swimming, and not prehensile as in sea-horses. Specimens, therefore, are not rarely found at a great distance from land, having been resistlessly carried by currents into the open ocean; one species, Syngnathus pelagicus, has an extraordinarily wide range over the tropical seas, and is one of the common fishes inhabiting the vegetation of the Sargasso Sea. The colour of these fishes often changes with the sea-weeds among which they may be found, passing from brown to green or even brick-red. In pipe-fishes the male is provided with a pouch &mdash; in some species on the abdomen, in others on the lower side of the tail &mdash; in which the ova are lodged during their development. This marsupial pouch is formed by a fold of the skin developed from each side of the trunk or tail, the free margins of the fold being firmly united in the median line throughout the period during which the eggs are being hatched. When the young are hatched the folds separate, leaving a wide slit, by which the young gradually escape when quite able to take care of themselves. Nearly a hundred different species of pipe-fishes are known, of which Siphonostoma typhle, Syngnathus acus (the Great Pipe-fish up to 18 in. in length), Nerophis aequoreus (Ocean Pipe-fish), Nerophis ophidian (Straightnosed Pipe-fish), and Nerophis lumbriciformis (Little Pipe-fish) are British species. The last three are destitute of a caudal fin.

PIPER, CARL, (1647-1716), Swedish statesman, was born at Stockholm on the 29th of July 1647. He entered the foreign office after completing his academical course at Upsala, accompanied Benedict Oxenstjerna on his embassage to Russia in 1673, and attracted the attention of Charles XI. during the Scanian War by his extraordinary energy and ability. In 1679 he was appointed secretary to the board of trade and ennobled. In 1689 he was made one of the secretaries of state, and Charles XI. recommended him on his deathbed to his son and successor, Charles XII. Piper became the most confidential of the new sovereign's ministers. In 1697 he was made a senator and set over domestic affairs while still retaining his state-secretaryship. In 1698 he was created a count, in 1702 appointed chancellor of Upsala University, and during the first half of the Great Northern War, as the chief of Charles's perambulating chancellery, he was practically prime minister. It was his misfortune, however, to be obliged to support a system which was not his