Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1899-05-11
A TALK ON ASBESTUS
SOME LIGHT UPON HOW LONG 1T HAS
BEEN IN USE.

BEEN IN USE.
A Man With n Mine of Information
Astonishes Another Who knew All
About the Mineral, but Who Would
Not Take Tempting Bet.
An elderly man, with a gray mus
tache, looked up from plate of spa
ghetti which he was eating in restau-
rant and spoke to three others
"Say," he said "what do you people
know about asbestus?"
Two of his companions preserved
modest silence, but the third, who was
little man, spoke up:
81 know all about asbestus, y he said.
''Do, eh?" queried the man with the
spaghetti on his plate. "Then how
longs it been in use?"
"Well, said the little man. hesitat-
ingly, "p'raps 80 years.
"You're away off OF course you
didn't know that Charlemagne had an
asbestus tablecloth?'
"Who's Chsrlemagne?"
"Well, said the elderly man,
"Charlemagne was king Of the Franks
and emperor Of the Romans about 1, 100
years ago He was great fighter and
owned an asbestus tablecloth.
"Don't believe it, said the little
man. 81 neve- heard of asbestus until
the Centennial
"Well, Charlemagne had the cloth
all right" said the elderly man. ''He
used to astonish his friends from the
interior by throwing the tablecloth
into the fire after dinner, and of course
it didn't burn Asbestus became quite
fashionable after that for towels and
napkins. 1t saved laundry bills. All a
mans wife had to do was to throw the
weeks wash into the stove and it came
out as clean as chalk. .
''Say" said the little man, incred-
ulously, edo you think you can string
me like that?''
''It's so, - declared the elderly man.
''But of course you never heard that
Benjamin Franklin had an asbestus
purse?"
'sNo. Hud he2" asked the little man.
with sheer.
s'Of course he had. He took it over
to England with him and sold it to a
man in Bloomsbury. London, for big
sum.
81 suppose, said the little man,
with wink, "that the Englishman
was friend of yours, and you know
his name
emo" replied the first man, 81
never saw him, but he was called Sir
Hans Sloane, and he had museum.
.'Dime museum?' grinned the little
man.
'sNot bit of it,, smiled the elderly
man good naturally. sit was sure
enough museum, and as matter of
fact it constituted the nucleus of the
British museum. dare say that Ben
jamin franklin asbestus purse is there
yet.
fallen. but the elderly man consoled
him
''Don't worry, he said, "there are
lots of people besides yourself who are
shy on knowledge regarding asbestus.
It wasn't much used during recent CEN
turtles. In 1876 an asbestus handker-
chief was shown to the Royal society
as great curiosity by DR.. Plot, who
had bought it from a traveller on his
return from China. They called it sala-
mander's wool. DR.. Plot saturated the
handkerchief with oil and threw it into
a fierce charcoal fire. The oil burned
off, but the handkerchief remained in
tact. The fellows of the society were
much interested and were not greatly
surprised when the price of asbestus in
Chinese Tartary was quoted at $500 a
Chinese ell, which isn't much more
than an English yard. It's likely that
the price had risen since the days of the
ancients, for those old fellows had big
sheets of asbestus, which they wound
around corpses before cremating them. y
"That's long time ago." said the
little man sententiously.
"Well, +" continued the elderly man,
''if you want to come down to later
years, there was book published in
London, 40 years ago, giving accounts,
among other things, of remarkable ex.
periments previously made at Milan, in
Italy, by the Chevalier Aldini, who had
used asbestus in the construction of 8
suit of freproof armor. The coverings
for arms, legs and body were of heavy
cloth which had been soaked in 8
strong solution of alum. The helmet.
gauntlets and stockings were of ashes
----,r-