The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-07-21
Asbestos the
Mineral Mystery
1t Seems to Be Half Vegetable,
Half Mineral, and is a Puzzle to
Science. :: :: :: ::

The mystery of the mineral king
dom is asbestos. 1t is, in fact, SO
much of a puzzle that many scientists
look upon it as a sort of link between
the mineral and the vegetable world.
1t might be said to resemble a miner
illogical vegetable, possessing the Gu
rious properties found in both; for 1t
is at once fibrous and crystalline, elias
tic and brittle, heavy as a rock when
taken from the mines, but light as
spun silk when treated mechanically.
Soft, delicate almost as cobweb, the
fbres of this strange mineral are so
nearly indestructible that they have
withstood the action of the elements
since the world began. Through all
the countless ages, during which the
hardest rocks surrounding it have
changed their characters, this geolo-
gical freak has remained intact, hav-
ing successfully resisted the assaults
of fire, acids and time.
One is accustomed to think Of as
bestos as a very modern discovery,
and in fact it's commercial utility
dates back hardly longer than a quar-
ter of a century. But historians are
pretty we'll agreed that the strange
mineral was known thousands of
years prior to the Christian era, be-
ing priced by the ancients more as an
article of extreme luxury or as a most
-,1rlorf,,1 onI infnrnctin0 n1rincjtv
than something OF much practical
utility.
There is much evidence, however,
that the Egyptians of the earlier
Pharaoh dynasties, engaged as they
were in commerce with the Atheni-
ans, built up a considerable industry
in the manufacture Of what were
known as "cere cloths"-garments
in which mummiied dead were
wrapped for preservation. There
is a specimen of asbestos textile in
the museum of the Vatican Library,
moreover, which was unearthed in
Rome in the eighteenth century.
1t is highly probable, say modern
authorities; that the spinning Of as
bestos for lamp wicks was also n
Of the earlier uses to which this Gre
clan asbestos was put. The neve--dy-
ing lamps of the Vestal Virgins were
probably equipped with such wicks.
Both Strabo and Plutarch refer to
these lamps as being perpetual be-
cause of the wicks remaining uncon-
sumed, while ,Pansanias, Pliny, The
ophrastus and other Greek and Ro-
man writer's refer constantly to both
lamp wicks and napkins as being
made of crystalline fax" a sub
stance which can have been none 9TH
er than asbestos.
Pliny in particular specifically de-
scribes napkins as being used over a
charcoal brazier and. emerging from
his treatment much fairer and whit
sr than they could have been had
they been washed in water and
bleached in the sunshine.
So we'll known, indeed, was the
mysterious non-heat conducting min
eral in those early times that some
historians have suggested tnat Shad-
zach, Mesach and Abednego, whom
Biblical history describes as having
'uryived the ordeal Of Nebuchadnez-
zar's fiery furnace, were clothed in
neavy asbestos coverings before the
ordeal began,
Be that as it may, the fact is we'll
authenticated that the corpses of ear
ly kings and heroes were wrapped
N incombustible blankets in order
% separate their ashes from those of
the funeral pyre. E - &rb
The we'll known story of a later
date which relates how Charlemagne
amused and %astonished his guests af-
ter dinner by having the tablecloth
thrown into the fire and then drawn
out again, clean and white, but still
uniniured, points undoubtedly to the
use of asbestos as a textile material.
Strange as it may appear, however,
the spinning and weaving of asbestos
seems to have become a lost art for
the next thousand years. No evidence
of such an industry appears In mod
ern writings until the early seventies
of the nineteenth century, when ex-
periments for using it commercially
were made in Switzerland. Shortly
after this the first specimens of a
very fine, white asbestos, mined In
Canada, were exhibited in London.
They attracted little serious atten-
ton at the time, however, and 1t was
not until 1878 that Canadian asbes-
tcs began to be mined on a large
scale. Since then the Black Lake
region of Quebec has been found to
produce the first fibre in the world,
and now nearly ninety per cent. OF all
the asbestos used comes from the
Dominion. Deposits are found, how
ever, all over the world, notably in
South Africa, but none of them pro-
duces the white fibre Of the Cana
dian mines, their color ranging from
blue and green to the recently dis
covered and very beautiful pink as
bestos of India.
The spinning and weaving of asbes-
tos has offered many difficulties, as
the asbestos ibres have nc rough sur
face like wool or cotton, but are very
smooth and thus have a tendency to
slip by one another when twisted and
subject to tension. An admixture of
vegetable or animal fibre was there
fore often necessary, but while these
facilitated the manufacturing opera
tions. they impaired the fire resist