Romancing the Stone: Memorable Musings About Meerschaum: Difference between revisions

The debate about what meerschaum is and what to call it is very complicated. I do not intend to visit old assertions and beliefs, but I offer this short overview. Descriptors for meerschaum from assorted sources are cuttlefish, sepiolite, hydrous silicate of magnesia, magnesite, kreidemassen (German), fuller’s earth, Turkish earth, lületaşi (Turkish), keffekil/kefftil/kilkeffi (allegedly a Tatar word modified by the Turks), myrsen (of questionable origin), and poetic terms, such as white gold, curly stone, sea froth, scum of the sea, sea surf, and sea foam (in English, ''mere'' [a lake], and scum. Confused? Does the following help to clarify? “Meerschaum, then, as we need hardly perhaps explain, is German for Sea-foam. We English have made a naturalised citizen of the German word. Other countries have adopted it in translation only; and we confess to wishing we had done the same, and as the Plant suggested, had called our Meerschaums ‘Sea-foam Pipes.’ Not even this is an accurate version of the original native term,—Kill-Kéffi, which in English would be ‘Foam-clay;’ in German ''Schaumthon''” (''Cope’s Mixture, Cope’s Smoke Room Booklets. Number Eight'', 1893). If you’re keen to understand how so many could be so confused for so long about this mineral and what to call it, read my treatise “Lost in Translation: The Linguistic Hodgepodge of Mg₄Si₆O₁₅(OH)₂·6H₂O” on pipedia.org. And there are many (fairy) tales about when and how this medium came to be used for pipes that are not worth reprising here, because they are unfounded.