Mineral Resembling Meerschaum 269 



cess and promoter of emery mining in that region, to the exact 

 locality of the paint material. Here I succeeded in unearth- 

 ing good sized specimens of the so-called meerschaum. From 

 one of these a friend, a meerschaum enthusiast, carved a pipe 

 which polished, colored and was declared to exhibit the 

 mythical properties of sepiolite. Subsequently I secured a 

 lease of the locality and had an excavation made to the depth 

 of a few feet, which satisfied me there was, at that point, no 

 large nor continuous quantity of the substance in question, 

 but I observed indications of the manner of its formation and 

 obtained fine included specimens of rare and interesting min- 

 erals to be hereafter described. 



This pseudo-meerschaum has a specific gravity of 2.5, is 

 usually of a compact slaty structure, under a strong glass 

 somewhat fibrous, cleaving in two directions, giving smooth, 

 impalpable surfaces, creamy white in color, with a glimmering, 

 waxy luster. It adheres slightly to the tongue, yields readily 

 to the knife, at a hardness of 2.5 ; it could be easily turned in a 

 lathe but for its slaty structure which causes it to split. (See 

 plate vii, fig. vii ) It breaks with difficulty across its planes 

 of cleavage with a very hackly fracture, but when polished 

 gives the glimmering waxy luster of its cleavage faces. For 

 this mineral I suggest the name hampdenite for reasons to be 

 stated in another paragraph further on. 



In composition the hampdenite and hampshirite are al- 

 most identical and closely approach some serpentines as is 

 sjiown in the following table of analyses: 



TABLE OF ANALYSES. 



99.741 99.036 98.822 99.13 100.25 100. 100 



