A fine mineral powder, soft and absorbent, ground from talc stone quarried in mountain seams. Travelers and soldiers keep a pouch for drying sweat, preventing chafing, and tending minor skin complaints; physicians use it to dust wounds and reduce weeping.
Climbers, steeplejacks, and wrestlers carry the same powder for an entirely different reason: chalked hands grip stone, rope, and an opponent’s wrist where sweat-slick hands slide. A climber on a long ascent dips his fingers into a belt-pouch of talc before each hard move; a wrestler before a bout dusts palms, forearms, and shoulders. Purists in the mountain-guilds distinguish between mountain chalk (a harder, whiter stone ground coarser for the hands) and the softer cosmetic talc preferred by physicians and perfumers, but most markets sell them under the same name and most users cannot tell the difference; what matters is that the powder is dry, finely milled, and free of grit.