Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/98

88 made by the natives into whips, which, I believe, are used to beat delinquents in Egypt; and I am told that they are exceedingly formidable weapons. To make the whip, the skin is cut into triangular slips, about five or six feet long, one end being pointed, the other broad; it is then coiled upon itself, and afterward dried in the sun, and, when finished, is light, dry, and elastic. The teeth of the hippopotamus are also of commercial value. Their structure is very peculiar. I have a tooth now before; it is hollow at one end, like the tusk of an elephant. When the animal was alive, this hollow was filled with soft pulp. The tooth is always growing forward as the pulp solidifies behind. The reader can easily see how this is, by examining the front tooth of the lower jaw of the next boiled rabbit he has for dinner. The outside of the tooth of the hippo is formed of a glass-like, hard enamel; it is exceedingly dense, hard, and flint-like. I have just taken down my old regimental sword, and find that, by striking it at the proper angle, a shower of sparks fly away from the tooth, like the sparks from a boy's "fire-devil" made in form of a pyramid with wet gunpowder. The teeth of the hippopotami, as in the rabbit, are sometimes liable to deformity. In the College of Surgeons there is the tooth of a hippopotamus which has grown nearly into the form of a circle. These teeth are, I believe, much sought after by dentists for making artificial teeth; and when a piece can be had of such a form as that the teeth can be worked in enamel, they preserve their color almost as in the natural teeth. The price of hippopotami-teeth is about thirty shillings a pound. Artificial teeth are also made from the tusks of the walrus, the sword of the narwhal, and also the teeth of the cachelot whale.

Not long ago, the old male hippopotamus at the Gardens suffered much from a decayed tooth. In former times he would have been shot, as was poor "Chunee," the elephant at Exeter 'Change. Mr. Bartlett, superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, with his ever-ready talent in meeting all emergencies, determined to pull out the tooth. He ordered the blacksmith to make a pair of "tooth-forceps," and a tremendous pair they were. The "bite" of the forceps just fitted the tooth of the hippo. By skilful management, Bartlett managed to seize Master Hippo's tooth as he put his head through the bars. The hippo, roaring frightfully, pulled one way, Bartlett and the keepers pulled the other, and at last out came the tooth, and Hippo soon got well again.

No animal in this world is made without a purpose, and we always find that the structure of an animal is admirably adapted to its mode of life. I believe that one of the principal duties which the elephant and rhinoceros unconsciously perform, is to cut paths through the dense forests and jungles in which they live. The home of the hippopotamus is among the aquatic forests at the bottoms of large rivers such as the Upper Nile. It is probable that, in the days of Moses, these