18 
The JYcvtiirciUsts’ Companion. 
feet under ground. Here the Turks 
have mined it for many centuries, keep¬ 
ing its produdlion a profound secret, 
never having allowed even a single Chris- 
tain to visit the mines, and but few of 
their own race. When the mineral is 
taken from the mine it has considerable 
foreign matter attached to and mingled 
with it. This extraneous matter is care¬ 
fully cut away, leaving only the pure 
material in many peculiar and fantastic 
shapes. As the trimming process pro¬ 
ceeds, the workman rubs it with a thick 
oily leaf, which gives it a fine polish for 
the market. Sepiolite is also found in 
Greece, in Moiocco, and at Vallecas, in 
Spain. 
Meerschaum is not sold by weight but 
by quality; its value being determined 
by its lightness and the size of the pieces. 
It is disposed of by the box, the price 
yarying according to the size and qual¬ 
ity of the mineral. The boxes are usu¬ 
ally three feet in length, twenty inches 
wide, and twelve inches high, and the 
contents of each is valued at from fifty 
to three hundred dollars. The consump¬ 
tion in the United States is about iioo 
boxes annually, although some years 
this amount is much exceeded; as in the 
year 1880, when more than 1500 chests 
were used. It is employed almost en¬ 
tirely iir the manufadture of pipes and 
cigar-holders, although it could be em¬ 
ployed in the produdtion of many other- 
useful and handsome ornaments. After- 
finishing the bowl of the pipe it is dip¬ 
ped in boiling wax, to fill the pores of 
the exterior, thus arresting the evapora¬ 
tion of the oil from the tobacco and 
retaining it near the surface, whence 
the rich color for which meerschaum is 
famous. 
No deposit of meerschaum has been 
discovered on the American continent; 
but there aie good reasons to believe 
that it may yet be found in this country. 
Every assayer and mineralogist,in m iner- 
al bearing sedlions of our country, has 
sent to him fine specimens of clay and 
kaolin, with the inquiry : “^Are they 
meerschaum?” It is well to continue 
the search, for if successful, an American 
mine would undoubtedly yield the dis¬ 
coverer a fortune. 
Meerschaum, or sepiolite, has occas¬ 
ionally been observed in the United 
States, but only in a few isolated places; 
though they were of a good quality. 
Specimens were discovered in Chester 
and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania ; 
at the Cheever iron mine, Richmond, 
Massachusetts; and in the seiqrentine 
rocks at New Rochelle, West Chester 
county. New York. 
Hummingbirds. 
BY G. D. STORY, CARTEI^VILLE, MO. 
Next to the paradise bird in splendor, 
if not equal to it, comes the fairy little 
hummmingbird, which Audubon de¬ 
scribed as the ‘‘glittering fragment ol'a 
rainbow.” This feathered firefly, the 
jewel of the woods, is very common 
both in North and South America. Its 
tongue is a long tube, through which 
the little fellow can draw the contents 
of each flower chalice as well as the bee, 
with which, indeed, the little hummer- 
must sometimes fight for the mastery. 
There are about seventy species of 
these birds in our western world, and 
the early navigators and adventurers, 
who penetrated to the tropics, wrote 
home the most extravagant and delight¬ 
ful descriptions of these wonderful little 
creatures,, as they saw them hoVering 
above the flowering masses or nestling 
