Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1899-03-11
A TALK ON ASBESTUS
SOME LIGHT Upon HOW LONG 1T HAS
BEEN IN USE.

| n IRAR with WINE Oh INFORMATION
] AstOMishes Another Who Knew Al
About the Mineral, but Who WOul(
Not Take a Tempting Bet.
An elderly man, with gray mus
tache, looked up from plate of spa
| ghetti which he was eating in a restau
rant and spoke to three others:
Say, he said, IS'what do you people
know about asbestus?'
Two of his companions preserved {
modest silence, but the third, who was
a little man, spoke up:
81 know all about asbestus, he said
''Do eh?' queried the man with the
spaghetti on his plate "Then how
long S it been in use?'
Wen =" said the little man, hesitat.
ingly ''p'raps 80 years.
''You re away off, Of course you
didn' know that Charlemagne had an
asbestus tablecloth? p
"Whos Charlemagne
"Well, +" said the elderly man,
"Charlemagne was king Of the Franks
and emperor of the Romans about /, 100
years ago He was great fighter and
owned an asbestus tablecloth y
Don't believe it,, said the little
man, 81 never heard of asbestus until
the Centennial 81
"Wen, 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-
ulouely, lido you think you can string
me like thatf''
" "It's 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 sheer.
"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 a wink, ''that the Englishman
was a friend of yours, and you know
his name. -
NO replied the first man, 81
never saw him, but he was called Sir
Hans Sloane, and he had museum. -
Dime museum gTinned the little
man.
mot bit of it., smiled the elde1ly
man good naturally. ''It was a sure
enough museum, and as a matter Of
fact it constituted the nucleus of the
British museum. / dare say that Ben
janain 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
It wasn't much used during recent cen
turtles. In 1875 an asbestus handker-
chief was shown to the Royal society
as great curiosity by DR.. Plot, who
had bought it from 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
10 10 eo11 IF hn or
much interested and were not greatly
surprised when the price of asbestus in
Chinese Tartary was quoted at $4O0
Chinese ell, which ism 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, IN
Italy, by the Chevalier Aldlni, who had
used asbest1s in the construction of a
suit Of fireproof armor. The coverings
for arms, legs and body were OF heavy
cloth which had been soaked in a
strong solution of alum. The helmet,
gauntlets and stockings were of asbes- |
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 big
gridiron over blazing fire for ten min
utes and buried their heads in piles of
burning hay and shavings, but never
5heless they came out unframed. They |
also handled bars of white hot iron |
and did other things which seemed !
quite miraculous. That was over 40 |
years ago
"Well, " said the little man, cts |
hard to believe that for several hun