Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/398

 384

Pipes when finished are classed, ac- cording to the meerschaum of which they are made, into first and second grades. And prices for the simple pipe will run from $3.50 to $10, or even $15 at the factory.

Carved pipes, of course, will range to almost any price; twenty-five dollars is perhaps the least for which one can hope to get a fine pipe. Naturally, the price of the meerschaum has much to do with this.

Meerschaum is not, as so many sup- pose, a spoil of the sea; but is quarried or dug in Anatolia. The fair grades of

the stone are

found one hun- dred feet below ground. The deeper you dig the better is the product. The splendidly carved pipes, of which every pipe lover will have one or two, are al- most always a deep mine product.

Good meer- schaum pipes, if of the softer stone, should color in a year. Others may take two or three years. There is no better taste with the "colored thusiastic smokers

��Popular Science Monthly

��Fishing in Bow

��Guiana with and Arrow

��the

��pipe; though en- often delude them- selves with the belief that there is.

��INSTEAD of using nets or the con- ventional hook and line, the natives of Guiana shoot the fish with bow and arrows. The arrow used is designed especially for this purpose and is about fi\-e feet in length, with no feathers. The head, which is barbed, is made from sheet iron and is provided with a socket which is slipped over the end of the shaft by a light, strong line about ten feet long. When the fish is struck and the barbed point is buried in its flesh the cane shaft

floats free and ' resting upon

the surface of the water serves as a buoy to mark the catch, which is hauled in by means of the line a t - tachcd to the head.

Fish weigh- ing from ten to one hundred pounds are caught in this manner. When there are no fish visible or when they are too far beneath the surface to shoot with certainty the natives resort This is accom- a low whistling

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��With His Bow and Five-Foot Arrows the Guiana Native Can Shoot and Kill Fish Weighing from Ten to One Hundred Pounds After "Calling" Them Up

��The Floating Vegetable Gardens of Mexico

THE Lake of Xochimilco, near the city of Mexico, is nearly covered with floating gardens called chinampas, on which ari' (iilli\ated ^•egetables and flowers for the cit>- markets. They are formed of floating masses of water plants covered with soil and secured by poplar stakes. The latter take root and surround the islands with living hedges, which arc useful as well as ornamental.

��to "calling" the fish.

plished by uttering

sound and waving the finger tips in a

peculiar manner. Surprising as it may

seem, the fish often approach the hunter

within bow shot when thus called.

But one does not nec^d to go to far- away Guiana to see fish killed by the bow and arrow. Our own Native Amer- ican Indians are past masters of the trick, and a sojourn with them in one of the western reser^•ations will convince the visitor that shooting fish is one of the Indian's fax'orite pastimes. An arrow much shorter than that used by the natives of Guiana is used, and no line is attached to the head of the arrow.

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