We will take up the story from the era of the clay pipe, I know pipe smoking goes further back in history than this but I'll start here because I think this is where pipe smoking as we know it today really had an effect.
The clay pipe started out as a plain affair and one of the oldest among the British Isles was a small clay called the "Fairy Pipe" a small bowled pipe sometimes referred to as the "Dutch Pipe", in Ireland and Scotland they were known as "Elfin Pipes" or "Celtic Pipes".

In the Elizabethan times clays were quite graceful with thin bowls and long stems. The Dutch redesigned these clays by enlarging the bowl and lengthened the stem and came to be known as the Alderman and was officially introduced by William III around 1700, the Alderman was adopted by the English and was graced with a curve to the stem and called "Yard of Clay" or "Churchwarden" as it's better known as today. The purpose of the long stem was to allow the smoker to rest his hand and bowl on the arm of the chair, the small knob on the bottom of the bowl was to stop the hot clay bowl from burning the chair arm, the knob became more of
an aesthetic part of the shorter pipes rather than a requirement in later times. The Churchwardens were in vogue with the upper-classes of the Elizabethan times, the more common man would smoke a short pipe, often made shorter by snapping the end of the stem off due mainly to the "shared house pipes" in the ale houses, these pipes were there for the enjoyment of the customers and by snapping the end off separated themselves from the previous smoker.
Around 1840 a pipemaker named Francois Comoy started carving pipes made from a material called Bruyere which later became to be known as Briar. The first Briars were introduced into England around 1854 and consequently Saint-Claude were Comoy first started carving these pipes became to be known as "The Pipe Making Capital", at this particular time only straight pipes were carved out of Briar and were usually fitted with amber, vulcanite or horn mouth pieces.

The early American Indians designed a Y-shaped nose pipe; the bottom end of the tube (that Is the stem of the Y) was pushed into a small pile of burning tobacco leaves, and the smoker sniffed the smoke up his nostrils. This method of smoking did not appeal to the sophisticated Spaniards who arrived in America in 1492 But tube pipes, of an even simpler basic pattern, are still smoked in South America and South east Asia to this day; the Australian bushmen have much the same sort of pipe, which is characteristic of primitive peoples. More complex and more highly decorated versions of the straight tube pipe are also smoked today in Afghanistan and parts of Japan.What collectors of tobacco antiques call mound pipes come only from North America and are found in the ancient burial mounds of the Red Indians. They are carved from some very hard stone — usually granite or porphyry—and are of characteristic shape: the stem of the pipe is flat and curved downwards: the bowl is set on top of the middle of the stem instead of at one end of it. These mound pipes are collected not only because of their age and shape, but also because of the beautiful detailed carving with which they are adorned. Animals, fish or birds are very often incorporated into the carving of the bow! in a most attractive way; human head carvings have also been found.
The pipe of peace of the American Indians was not an invention of the western screenwriters, but a real and significant part of North American Indian life. The Indians called it a calumet, and it was one of the most important possessions of the tribe. The red clay for making the bowl was quarried in one particular place sacred for this purpose; all the tribes, even when they were warring among themselves, could come in peace to collect the material. The stem of the pipe, some 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 metres) long, was decorated in a special style which was unique to each tribe. The war pipe was of much less significance. It was merely a tomahawk the handle of which had been hollowed out to form a stem, and a pipe bowl fixed to the head opposite the blade.

The hubble bubble, more formally known as a water pipe, hookah or, in India, nargileh, makes use of a very practical and sensible idea. Between the burning tobacco and the mouthpiece is a container of water through which the smoke passes. This removes some of the impurities and also cools the smoke. Any pipe smoker who has tried a nargileh will know the difference and appreciate it. The disadvantage of the water pipe is that the smoker has to stay in the same place: it does not fit in with the perpetual movement of modern western life. However, the Chinese and many of the neighbouring races smoke another version of the water pipe, which is made of metal and being only 9 or 10 inches (230-250 mm) high, can be carried about.