The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-03-17
TALK On ASBESTUS
some LIGHT UPON HOW LoNGIT HAS
BEEN IN USE.
"A Man with a Mine Of information
N AstOnishes Another Who Knew All
About the Mineral, but Who Would
Not Take a Tempting Bet.

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 r.
Two Of his companions preserved a
modest silence, but the third. who was
q little man, spoke up:
II know all about asbestus,' 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 Charlemagne2'
.'Well," said the elderly man,
..Charlemagne was king of the Franks
and emperor Of the Romans about l, 100
years ago. He was a great fighter and
owned an asbestus tablecloth.''
''Don't believe it, said the little
man. II never heard of asbestus until
the Centennial"
"Well, Charlemagne had the cloth
all right said the elderly nan. "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.
.sSay." said the little man, incred-
ulously, lido you think you can string
me like thatY'
''It's so, declared the elderly nan
.tBut Of course you heard that
purse?'
"No. Had.he2" asked the little man.
with a sheer.
'sOf course he had. He took it over
to England with him and sold it to a
man in Bloomsbury, London. for a big
sum-
"l 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, II
never saw him, but he was called Sir
Hans Sloane. and he had a museum.
"Dime museum p grinned the little
man.
"Not a bit of it, smiled the elderly
man good naturally. 1T was a sure
enough museum, and as a matter of
fact it constituted the nucleus of the
British museum. I dare say that Ben
jamin Franklin asbestus purse is there
yet"
The little man looked a little crest
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 1915 an asbestus handker-
chief was shown to the Royal society
as a 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.
'That's a 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 Aldini, who had
used asbestus 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 ashes
tus. Then there was an overdress, cov-
ering the body, thighs and feet, of wire
gauZe, 20 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 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, tits
hard to believe that for several hun
areds of thousands of years the world
was SO full Of chumps that there wasn't
room for a man smart enough to utilize
asbestus. On the whole. I guess I'll go
on doubling"
"All right" returned the elderly
a eve got So 5000 that says I'm
right. Perhaps your dnuhts are STRONG