MEERSCHAUM, a German word designating a soft white mineral sometimes found floating on the Black sea, and rather suggestive of sea-foam (Meerschaum), whence also the French name for the same substance, ecume de mer. It was termed by E. F. Glocker sepiolite, in allusion to its remote resemblance to the "bone" of the sepia or cuttlefish. Meerschaum is of an opaque white, grey or cream colour, breaking with a conchoidal or fine earthy fracture, and occasionally, though rarely, fibrous in tex ture. It can be readily scratched with the nail, its hardness being about 2 on Mohs' scale. The specific gravity varies from 0.988 to 1.279, but the porosity of the mineral may lead to error. Meer schaum is a hydrous magnesium silicate, with the formula H,Mg2Si3010, or Most of the meerschaum of commerce is obtained from Asia, Minor, chiefly from the plain of Eski-Shehr, on the Haidar Pasha Angora railway; where it occurs in irregular nodular masses, in alluvial deposits, which are extensively worked for its extraction. The mineral is associated with magnesite (magnesium carbonate), the primitive source of both minerals being serpentine. When first extracted the meerschaum is soft, but it hardens on exposure to the sun or when dried in a warm room. Meerschaum is found
also, though less abundantly, in Greece, as at Thebes, and in the islands of Euboea and Samos ; it occurs also in serpentine at Hrubschitz near Kromau in Moravia. It is found to a limited extent at certain localities in France, Spain and Morocco. In the United States it occurs in serpentine in Pennsylvania (as at Not tingham, Chester county) and in South Carolina and Utah.
Meerschaum has occasionally been used as a substitute for soap and fuller's earth, and it is said also as a building material; but its chief use is for tobacco-pipes and cigarette-holders. The natural nodules are first scraped to remove the red earthy matrix, then dried, again scraped and polished with wax. The rudely shaped masses thus prepared are sent from the East to Vienna and other manufacturing centres, where they are turned and carved, smoothed and finally polished. Imitations are made in plaster of Paris and other preparations.
The soft white earthy mineral from Langbanshyttan, in Verm land, Sweden, known as aphrodite (14p6s, foam), is closely related to meerschaum. It may be noted that meerschaum has sometimes been called magnesite (q.v.).