Evening star., 1924-11-28
MINING ASBESTOS
SMALL C|TY'S lob
Mineral Is Termed Missing
Link Between Rocks
and Plants.

Mining the missing link" between
rocks and plants is the job a Fernch-
Canadian town of 10000 does for a
waiting world.
Asbestos justifies in many ways
the nickname given it by the. men
who blast it out of natures rock
vaults" says bulletin of the Ma
tional Geographic Society from it's
headquarters at Washington, for it
is a physical paradox, even If II can
not bridge the gap separating the
boulder and the sapling.
Asbestos can be woven like cotton
and wool; in the natural state it
looks like spun glass in bundles; II is
as smooth as silk to touch. Like the
volatile heroes of Chinese myths, It is
now a roof, changes to theater cur
tains or coat, becomes paper, or i'm
prisons live steam to hard labor, pre-
vents thousands of automobile crashes
every day, and may hide itself in the
rustic of a silk dress.
Clouds of Asbestos Dust.
"Thetford mines, rs miles directly
south of Quebec, is Graded in a valley
whose ridges are out-riders of Yer
monts presiding glory, the Green
Mountains. Travellers on the main
highway south from Quebec to the
United States easily recognize Tnet-
ford mines. or it's little sister town
Of Black Lake, because a pail of
white asbestos dust hangs over both.
This cloud obscures the great dumps
of rock refuse, veritable foothills or
plateaus themselves, and the gleam-
ing towers of the typically large
French Canadian churches. Travellers
may have difficulty understanding
Thetford's people though, because,
save for the English mine managers,
they are as French is Gascons.
Asbestos is one of the few nom
metallic minerals of great use to
mankind; it's partners are coal and
sulphur. Although it is frequent in
the serpentine rock from Gaspe to
the Carolinas and elsewhere, the de-
posits near Thetford Mines supply
more than so per cent of the worlds
asbestos needs.
stand two books on end and pile a
handful of matches between them
with the matches at right angles to
the walls supplied by the books.
There you have an approximation of
the manner in which the glassygreen
natural asbestos occurs in rock. The
bundle varies in width from a thread
TO three, four and five inches in un-
usual samples.
Bends. Stretches and Resists Heat.
I'm the whole amazing range of
crystals of various substances with
the perfect pyramiding, sectoring
and cutting found fn nature. no 6rys-
tails are probably more remarkable
than asbestos. Imagine a smoke
stack 1000 feet high. This approx
mates the proportions of an asbestos
fiber crystal. Now If the smoke
stack will bend like willow in the
wind and stretch like a stiff spring;
if 1t can resist terrific heat and be
impervious to practically all acids.
oxygen and moisture, it can do what
the marvellous asbestos crystal does
If one takes a block of asbestos and
rubs the crystal bundles lengthwise
fluff of white fiber will spring up
as If by magic. These fibers can
be carded, spun and woven into cloth
with almost the same facility as raw
cotton or wool
Roman mobiles, and even Charlie
magne. liked a few parlor tricks with
their demi- -tasse. To set the mouths
of their guests agape they noncha-
lantly threw tablecloths into char
coal burners. But visitors who
dashed for the exits must have come
back to wonder. for the cloths did
not burn; they were asbestos. Mod
ern use of asbestos dates from the
beautiful Alpine valleys of Susa. ap-
preached from France through the
Mont Gents. Tunnel and the Aosta
valley. One of the first important
applications, packing for engines.
still creates one of the principal de-
mands
Varieties Differ Widely.
Italian asbestos occurs lengthwise
or the vein, instead of in bundles,
ana is of different mineral history
An asbestos from South Africa shows
stlli diferent properties, so the term
| ASBESTOS must, therefore, be regard
ed as an inclusive term referring to
a variety of minerals of chemical
similarity, much as coal NAV be an
'nraclte, bituminous or Ignite. Ap-
propriately, the Greek father of orr
WORD asbestos means 'indestructibIe
AT Thetford mines pit operation is
the general practice, although there
are rev galleries. Any rock with
veins running 6 per cent asbestos is
worth working. and as the rocks are
fairly uniform in quality, the pits go
very deep. Standing on the edge of
the deepest working one can see men
like ants toiling in the shadow $50
feet below. Following best mining
practice blasting occurs at noon and
at $50 o'clock in the afternoon. The
pit crew breaks the pieces into parts
small enough for the crushers and
loads them into baskets which rise
skyward and disappear over the edge
of the cliff.
RPm