'file ]^[atll^alists’ Companioii. 
‘‘WlicresooTcr the Naturalist turns Ills eye, life or the germ of life lies spread before him.’’--Humboldt. 
35 Cents per 
Annum. 
CHARLES P. GUELF, . 
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER. 
Single Copy, 
5 Cents. 
VOL. II. 
BROCKPORT, N. Y., SEPTEMBER, 1886. 
NO. 2. 
Then and Now. 
The sun looked down on a sargasso sea, 
There sediment was being laid down; 
Rolling prairies there were to be, 
Coal veins in time be found. 
No sails were spread on that wide ocean blue 
No argosies did there go down ; 
Each atom there, to its affinity true. 
Its primal dual atom found. 
Giant ages then did roll along, 
Then came lead, copper, silver, gold; 
At last man was evolved to sing his song. 
And own this metal, wealth untold. 
The mountain ranges, they had come to-day 
Broad valleys did lie between ; 
Earth’s giant rivers there transported clay— 
There conic iron knobs were seen. 
There populations on grand prairies wide— 
There continental cities stand ; 
A cereal sea waves on the mountain side. 
There are the corn and cotton lands. 
—Van Cleve Phillips. 
Meerschaum. 
(sepiolite). 
BY DK. B. F. MASON, SAN LEANDRO, CAL. 
T he word meeischaum is Irom the 
German, MEER, the sea,and schaum, 
foam; on account of the original belief 
that it was obtained from sea foam. Sep¬ 
iolite, its recent scientific name, is de¬ 
rived Irom the Greek word, sepia, cut¬ 
tlefish, the bone ,of which is light and 
])orous, and also obtained from the sea. 
Meerschaum is a soft, opaque and 
com])a6l mineral, with a smooth feeling 
and a fine earthy texture, resembling 
clay or kaolin. It is light—in dry 
masses, floating on water—with a white 
or grayish-white color, or with a faint 
yellowish or reddish tinge. When first 
dug from the earth, it is soft, with a 
greasy feeling, and lathers like soap; and 
on this account it is said to have been 
used by the Tartars in washing their lin¬ 
en. 
The composition of meerschaum, by a 
chemical analysis, is found to be : silica, 
6o-8 ; magnesia, 27-1; water, 12-1 ; al¬ 
though the amount of water usually var¬ 
ies in different specimens. 
The following are certain and simple 
tests for the mineral: W^et a piece of 
meerschaum with the tongue, then cut 
off a very thin slice with a sharp knife, 
when it will curl into a perfedt shaving. 
Proceed similarly with a lump of clay, 
and it falls off as dust. Touch the 
tongue to the surface of meerschaum, it 
will adhere strongly to it, which it will 
not do to either kaolin or clay. If a 
small piece of the mineral be placed un¬ 
der the microscope, it will show that it 
is composed of very minute cockleshells, 
twisted and matted together into a solid 
mass. When heated in a glass tube it 
yields water and gives out a fetid odor. 
With a cobalt solution it gives a pink 
color on ignition, and is decomiiosed 
by hydrochloric acid with gelatinization. 
Most of the meerschaum of the world 
is obtained in the stratified alluvial de¬ 
posits, at the plains of Eschi Shehr, in 
Asia Minor, where it is found about fifty 
