Mineral used in pre-historic times. Presumably the most important mineral in clay used in pre-historic pottery. The photohttp://www.mindat.org/photo-620484.html shows the Sumerian symbol for clay. חלבנהπη in Hebrew. λός in Greek. Lutum in Latin. Kaolinite, by name, was known since the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty in the thirteenth century as "Kaolin earth" and was first properly described by Song Yingxing in 1637 in his book Tian Gong Kai Wu (translated: "Introduction to Heaven's Handicrafts" or "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature"). Its usefulness was introduced to the West by a French priest in 1712 (de Fourestier, 2005).
Found largely in masses - clay beds - usually with a bright white color, also pale yellow to light brown color due to staining or mixture, rarely blue to blue gray.
Kaolinite can have a lot of layer stacking variation, from highly ordered to highly disordered, while dickite and nacrite are effectively differently ordered polytypes. Poorly crystalline kaolinite is typical of low grade sediments, especially non-marine, while dickite and nacrite form at higher temperature, including many hydrothermal deposits.