The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-11-26
TURKISH MEERsCHAUM.
Where it is Found and How it is Pre-
 pared for Market

1 " ucEe II Is OuUQ ana HOW II IS Pre- | pared for Market
 Meerschaum, which is extensively 1 utaIized for the manufacture of pipes. Is almost entirely confined to Turkey. ] The meerschaum can be mined by any
 person at Sai-sou, SSepetdje, Gheikli
 and Menlou on payment of five plas to
 the administration of mines, the cost Of
 permit. The mines at Sari-sou are situated at a distance of about seven
 teen miles to the east of Eskichehir
 The pit at Sari-sou was opened twenty years ago, but to-day there are eight 1 thousand mines opened, of which, how
 ever, only two thousand are worked | the remainder having been abandoned. | Some four thousand miners work these
 mines, and every Friday a market is
 held at which they dispose of the ! blocks of meerschaum they have ex-
 tracted during the week. For the ac- commodation of the workmen some one | thousand huts have been erected. ! At Sepetdje, about eighteen miles to 1 the northeast of Eskichehir, there are some twenty thousand pits in a space of six miles, of which only one hun dred and fifty are worked, all the oth- CTS being exhausted. It is said that these mines were opened one thousand years ago, which is not incredible, as it 1 is we'll known that magnesia was for
 merly used for many purposes other than the fabrication of pipes. More
 over, fuller's earth used to be worked on a vast scale by the ancients, The meerschaum mines are worked by some five hundred miners, who live in the surrounding villages. At Gheikh, in the neighborhood of Sepetdje, there are three thousand pits, of which only one hundred are worked. giving employ ment to four hundred miners.
 The only place where the administra- ton of mines authorized meerschaum to be extracted is Menlou, and here there are only twenty pits actually worked by a hundred workmen. The working of these meerschaum deposits called the Eskichehir mines which for merly were actively worked, is re- duced to TITO pits, giving employment to some five thousand miners, the greater proportion of whom are Kurds and Persians. These deposits are worked on the following primitive sys- tems: A foreman or ganger, having from two to fifteen men under his su- pervision, having begged out piece of ground. generally metre wide, pit is sunk until red, clayey earth, which is the first sign of the existence of magnesia, is reached. Sometimes this Is reached at a few meters from the surface, but as rule the miners have to dig down some twenty meters and often before and even up to sixty meters before reaching the red earth wherein the meerschaum Is dissemina- ted in kidney and other irregular forms. The volume of these blocks sel- dom exceeds thirty to forty cubic cen tirneters, the greater part of them be- ing the size of a walnut or small apple. On reaching the gangue containing the strata of magnesia the miners drive horizontal shafts through the red clay. This, however, is no easy matter, as they cannot detach or pick off more than fifty grammes of the clay at a stroke.
 Some of these galleries are no less Llan d Ul d 1lllC III iCil9 Iis eAtA it sometimes happens that owing to these being pierced at random different gangs meet underground. They work night and day, the galleries being light ed with petroleum. After a certain quantity of blocks have been extracted, the meerschaum, still enveloped in it's gangue, is drawn out of the pit and stacked in the miners barracks. These blocks are bought by the manufactur- CTS of Eskchehir in job lots every Fri day, and there are some one hundred and fifty persons who regularly attend these markets. The meerschaum is then taken to Eskichehir, where the blocks are cleaned, the operation con- sisting of scraping and cutting the blocks with a sharp instrument or knife the meerschaum being still soft and easily cut into any shape or form. Over eleven hundred persons are oc- cupiedr in cleaning and shaping these blocks, which, after being thoroughly cleaned, are separated into four class es, according to the size and quality. These blocks being ready for sale, a bargain is struck between the pipe manufacturers and the commission agents and merchants at Eskichehir, of whom there are about dozen. The latter then pack the blocks of these four classes with very great care into boxes of equal size, each block being wrapped in cotton to avoid any frOc- tion or shock between the pieces. The output of these mines varies from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty tons. The Eskichehir is very highly prlzed in on account of it's superior quail ity, and these deposits, notwithstand ing that they have been worked for | centuries, are still considered to be in | haustible-Seientific American. SAILING OF MIR. CHAMBERLAIN. | Started on Journey to South Africa |