Smyrna times., 1899-03-15
A TALK ON ASBESTUS
some LIGHT UPON HOW LONG 1T HAS
BEEN IN USE.

Man With n Mine of Information
AstOnishes Another Who Knew All
About the Mineral. but Who Would
Not Take n Tempting Bet.
An elderly man. with "a gray mus
tache, looked up from a plate of spa
ghetti which he was eating in a restau-
rant and spoke to three others
"Say, he said. what do you people
know about asbestus?'
Two of his companions preserved a
modest silence but the third. who was
little man, spoke up
Il know all about asbestus. he said.
DO, eh2 queried the man with the
spaghetti on his plate 'Then how
longs it been in user
"Well. said the little man. hesitat-
ingly. ''praps 80 years
You're away off OF course you
didn't know that Charlemagne had an
Rsbestus tablecloth2'
who's Charlemagne
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 never 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
man s 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. do You think you can string
me like that?
Its so. declared the elderly man.
but of course you never heard that
Benjamin Franklin had an asbestus
purse?'
mo Had her asked the little man.
with a sneer
'Of course he had He took it over
to England with him and sold it to a
man in Bloomsbury London. for big
sum
Il suppose. said the little man.
with a wink. that the Englishman
was friend of yours and you know
his name
mo replied the first man, Il
never saw him but he was called Sir
Hans Sloane and he had museum
Dime museum grinned the little
man
Not bit of it. smiled the elderly
man good naturedly 1T was sure
enough museum and as a matter of
fact it constituted the nucleus of the
British museum dare say that Ben
jamin Franklin s asbestus purse is there
yet
The little man looked little crest
fallen but the elderly man consoled
him
Don worry. he said. there are
lots of people besides yourself who are
shy on knowledge regarding asbestus.
1t WASH t much used during recent cen
turies 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 wool DIR 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 $400 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.
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 a book published in
London. 40 years ago. giving accounts,
among other things. of remarkable ex-
periments previously made at Milan, il
Italy. by the Chevalier Aldini. who had
used asbestus in the construction of g
suit of fireproof armor The coverings
for arms, legs and body were of heavy
cloth which had been soaked in 6
strong solution of alum The helmet
gauntlets and stockings were of ashes
tus Then there was an overdress, COW
ering the body. thighs and feet, of wire
gauze, 90 meshes to the inch. With
this armor on. men stood on a big
gridiron over a blazing fire for ten min
utes and buried their heads in piles Of
burning hay and shavings, but never
theless they came out upharmed.. They
also handled bars of white hot iroI
and did other things which seemed
quite miraculous That was over Al
years ago"
"Well, said the little man, ''it''
hard to believe that for several hun
dreds of thousands of years the world
was so full of chumps that there WASH
room for a man smart enough to utilize
asbestus On the whole, l guess I'll g
on doubling.
"All right. returned the elderly
man. ave got S.. 900 that says Tn
right Perhaps your doubts are strong
enough to uphold bet of $40 agains
itT
But the little man wouldn't BET. =
New York Times