It went to my heart to
do so; but I thus gained ten minutes of invaluable time, without which
both Arowhena and myself must have certainly perished.
I remember one incident which bears upon this part of the treatise. The
gentleman who gave it to me had asked to see my tobacco-pipe; he examined
it carefully, and when he came to the little protuberance at the bottom
of the bowl he seemed much delighted, and exclaimed that it must be
rudimentary. I asked him what he meant.
"Sir," he answered, "this organ is identical with the rim at the bottom
of a cup; it is but another form of the same function. Its purpose must
have been to keep the heat of the pipe from marking the table upon which
it rested. You would find, if you were to look up the history of tobacco-
pipes, that in early specimens this protuberance was of a different shape
to what it is now. It will have been broad at the bottom, and flat, so
that while the pipe was being smoked the bowl might rest upon the table
without marking it. Use and disuse must have come into play and reduced
the function to its present rudimentary condition. I should not be
surprised, sir," he continued, "if, in the course of time, it were to
become modified still farther, and to assume the form of an ornamental
leaf or scroll, or even a butterfly, while, in some cases, it will become
extinct.
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