The Saint Paul globe., 1897-06-07
CENTENNIAL OF THE MEERgCHAuM.
One Hundred Years Ago These Ink
urious Articles Came Into Being.

One Hundred Years Ago These Lux
urious Articles Came Into Being.
With the waxy white of silicate Of
magnesia is to be marked this yeal
the centenary of the meerschaum pipe
says the Pail Mall Gazette. AS the
egg holds the music of the nightin-
gale, the AnatOlian mines had held the
calumet better beloved of the smoker
than the pipe of any bird. Your Ana
tolian smoked a hundred years ago,
but he has never smoked a meer-
Schaum. Out of his silicate he fash
Toned vases and cups and varied bibe1-
oterie. Occasionally he washed himself
| with it, but to it's proper use it never
entered his mind to put it.
But in 1897 the raw material got
to Prague. The first European to
smoke meerSchaum was a Magyar
Out of Hungary meerschaum pipes
were sent to the fairs of Leipsic and
Frankfort. By and by Vienna had
nonopolized the article For a while
this ecume de mer was thought to be
not natural substance, but a manu-
| factured paste, the invention of one
RUNNER. Of him it was held to be
eponymic. Hummer probably did not
discourage this idea.
But the chemical analyst got inter-
ested in the matter. He smoked a
meerschaum, very likely. He ex-
planned and then the prospector went
to work. MeerSchaum mines were
locked up. Not many were discovered.
One was roundly asserted to underlie
Montmartre. If it did it may do so
still, but the borings do not seem to
have been encouraging. What was
thought to be great find was made
by French captain of engineers in
the Crimea. In eXcavating a trench he
came, as he thought, upon magnifi-
cent stratum of the stuff. He was at
te ent1ve to that trench all through the
operations of the siege. When the war
was over he took a specimen BLOCK
back to Paris with him and submitted
1t, With large order for pipes, to a
manufacturer. The manufacturer had
his doubts; his foreman had none. He
wrote his name on the Workroom door
with the Sebastopol pipe-c1ay Meer-
schaums, however, have been made of
less likely substances since
For half century the real pipe wa:.
exclusively of Vienna make. 1t was
rather formidable looking implement.
1t held quarter of an ounce of to-
bacco. The stem, shaped like that OF
the German porcelain pipe Of the pres
ent day, and made of WoOd-cherry-
wood for choice-was a foot and a half
long, with a mouthpiece of amber, or Of
the precious metals, and a taSSel-and-
fringe adornment. Mr.. Benson was the
chief purveyor of meerschaum pipes
over here in the early part of the pres
ent century. There is an oil painting
eXtant representing the officers of a dis
tinguished British cavalry regiment en-
gagged in the ante-room of Ipswich bar
racks, in the selection Of pipes from Mr..
| Bensons stock, prior to their departure
for the seat of war in 1903.
When meerscha ums came to be made
in Paris the German form of pipe had
gone out Of fashion. Something nearer
the present dimensions had become tho
mode, and the carving of the meer-
schaum pipestem had become a fna
art
The man who started this lucrative
industry over the water was Edward
Carbon. He voyaged out to Anatolia
in 1S47 He has told the story of his
adventures with land rats and water
! rats in book which has an additional
| delight for its posSesSors in that there
are not a dozen copies of it extant. But
the pirates contemptuously let his
| freight of silicate pass and he brought
it in triumph to Marseilles. If any man
| is to be busted over this centenary
| Carbon should be that man.
| 1t may, however, be noted that sort
of meerschaum had been brought into
France by the army in Egypt. The
French army smoked this sort of pipe
in more than one campaign afterward.
| Gen. Lassalle led cavalry charges with
a pipe of this sort in his mouth Moreau
smoked one while both his thighs were
being amputated.
A real meerschaum pipe may be
smoked still. To test it you pass a
needle through the bowl when 1t is mod
erately warm. The hole closes up of
! itself, and the operation leaves no trace.
| The real meerschaum'' of commerce
| is another matter. And the "meer-
| schaum" of powdered eggshells, treated
with wax and oil, is yet another. Prob.
| ably the largest collector of the genu-
| inc article was a some time transpar-
! ency of Zwei-BruclSen. His collection
was valued at 100000 fiorins The keen
est appreciation of a meerschaum pipe
we ever came across was the late Ed
| win Booth.