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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 232, 8 October 1878, Page 3

Meerschaum, German for sea foam, is the name given to a hydrous silicate of magnesia, on account of its lightness and jprhitish appearance.. It is. Spain,, Greece, Turkey, and" other .parts,_of Southern Europe, also in Asia Minor. When first removed from the beds it is quite soft, and cuts like cheese. It is of varied specific gravity, the lightest quality being too porous tor pipes, and the heaviest being rejected from suspicion of its being an artificial product. The blocks or finished pipes are soaked or boiled in milk or wax, the fatty substances of which are absorbed by the ineerchaum, and are acted upon by the nicotine of the tobacco and the heat of smoking. Those which have been soaked ?« milk become of a rich creamy white, those treated with wax assume the yellow and brown colours which are so much admired. The imitation meerschaum pipes are made from the parings of the genuine material, which, being reduced to powder, are boiled in water and moulded in blocks, sometimes with the addition of pipe-clay. The imitation -does not color, so well as the genuine, ■and is liable to chip.