One of the chessmen of Charlemagne is to be seen in Paris:  he rides an elephant, and is attended by a cortege, all in one piece.  Sometimes these men are very elaborate ivory carvings in themselves.

As Mr. Maskell points out that bishops did not wear mitres, according to high authority, until after the year 1000, it is unlikely that any of the ancient chessmen in which the Bishop appears in a mitre should be of earlier date than the eleventh century.  There is one fine Anglo-Saxon set of draughts in which the white pieces are of walrus ivory, and the black pieces, of genuine jet.

Paxes, which were passed about in church for the Kiss of Peace, were sometimes made of ivory.

There are few remains of early Spanish ivory sculpture.  Among them is a casket curiously and intricately ornamented and decorated, with the following inscription:  “In the Name of God, The Blessing of God, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning of the fatal period of death, be with Hagib Seifo....  This box was made by his orders under the inspection of his slave Nomayr, in the year 395.”  Ivory caskets in Spain were often used to contain perfumes, or to serve as jewel boxes.  It was customary, also, to use them to convey presents of relics to churches.  Ivory was largely used in Spain for inlay in fine furniture.

King Don Sancho ordered a shrine, in 1033, to contain the relics of St. Millan.  The ivory plaques which are set about this shrine are interesting specimens of Spanish art under Oriental domination.  Under one little figure is inscribed Apparitio Scholastico, and Remirus Rex under another, while a figure of a sculptor carving a shield, with a workman standing by him, is labelled “Magistro and Ridolpho his son.”

Few individual ivory carvers are known by name.  A French artist, Jean Labraellier, worked in ivory for Charles V. of France; and in Germany it must have been quite a fashionable pursuit in high life; the Elector of Saxony, August the Pious, who died in 1586, was an ivory worker, and there are two snuff-boxes shown as the work of Peter the Great.  The Elector of Brandenburgh and Maximilian of Bavaria both carved ivory for their own recreation.  In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many well-known sculptors who turned their attention to ivory; but our researches hardly carry us so far.

For a moment, however, I must touch on the subject of billiard balls.  It may interest our readers to know that the size of the little black dot on a ball indicates its quality.  The nerve which runs through a tusk, is visible at this point, and a ball made from the ivory near the end of the tusk, where the nerve has tapered off to its smallest proportions, is the best ball.  The finest balls of all are made from short stubby tusks, which are known as “ball teeth.”  The ivory in these is closer in grain, and they are much more expensive.  Very large tusks are more liable to have coarse grained bony spaces near the centre.