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Attempts have not been wanting to imitate this material, hitherto not very successfully. The large quantity of parings that are left in trimming up the bowls, has been rendered available for the manufacture of what are called “massa bowls,” but they do not enjoy the reputation of the genuine meerschaum bowls.

There is yet another mineral production, the use of which Turkish smokers, at any rate, know how to appreciate. This is amber. The Turk will expend an almost fabulous sum in an amber mouth-piece for his narghileh. Four valuable articles of this description were exhibited in the Turkish department of the Exhibition of 1851, which were worth together £1000, two of them being valued at £305 each. There is a current belief in Turkey that amber is incapable of transmitting infection; and as it is considered a great mark of politeness to offer the pipe to a stranger, this presumed property of amber accounts in some measure for the estimation in which it is held.

The knowledge of amber extends backwards to a remote antiquity, as the Phœnicians of old fetched it from Prussia. Since that period it has been obtained there uninterruptedly, without any diminution in the quantity annually collected. The greatest amount of amber is found on the coast of Prussia proper, between Konigsberg and Dantzic. From the amber-beds on the coast of Dirschkeim, extending under the sea, a storm threw up, on the 1st of January, 1848, no less than 800 pounds. The amber fishery of Prussia formerly produced to the king about 25,000 crowns per month. After a storm, the amber coasts are crowded with gatherers, large masses of amber being occasionally cast up by the waves. In digging for a well in the coal-mines near Prague, the workmen lately discovered, between the bed of gritstone which forms the roof of that mine and the first layer of coals, a bed of yellow amber, apparently of great extent. Pieces weighing from two to three pounds have been extracted. There are two kinds—the terrestrial, which is dug in mines, and the marine, which is cast ashore during autumnal storms.