New Britain herald., 1924-10-31
ASBESTOS IS THE
 STRANGE MINERAL
French Canadian Town Of i2,0OO
 Works for Waiting World

Washington, D. C., Oct. S1.-Min- ing the missing link" between rocks and plants IS the job a French Can adian town of 12,o 900 dose for wait ing world.
 Asbestos iustifes In many ways the nickname given it by the men who blast it out of Natures rock vaults" says a bulletin of the Ma tiouaI Geographic Society from its headquarters at Washington, D. C., ''for it is a physical paradox even if 1t cannot bridge the gap separating the boulder and the sapling.
 Asbestos can be woven like cotton and wool; in the natural state 1t looks like spun glass in bundles, 1t is as smooth as silk to touch. Like the volatile heroes of Chinese myths 1t is now a roof, changes to theater curtain or a coat, becomes paper, or imprisons live steam to hard labor, prevents thousands of automobile crashes every day and may hide itself in the rustic of silk dress.
 Clouds of Asbestos Dust.
 HThetford Mines, 75 miles directly south of Quebec is craded in a val ley whose ridges are out-rides of Vermont's presiding glory, the Green Mountains. Travellers on the main, highway south from Quebec to the, United States easily recognizes Thet- ford Mines, or it's little sister town of Black Lake, because of pail Of white asbestos dust hangs over both. This could obscures the great dumps of rock, refuse, veritbale foothills or plateaus themselves, and the gleam- ing towers of the typically large French Canadian churches. Travel CTS may have difficulty understand ing Thetfords people though, be- cause, save for English mine man agers, they are as French as Cas- cons.
 Asbestos is one of the few non metallic minerals of great use P mankind; its partners are coal and sulphur. Although tt Is frequent Tn the serpentine rock from Gaspe to fha Carolinas and elsewhere. the de- eosits near Thetford Mines supply more than 80 per cent of the worlds asbestos needs.
 Stand two books on end and pile h handful of matches between them with the matches at right angles 10 the walls supplied by the books. There you have an approximation of the manner in which the glassy- green natural asbestos occurs in rock The bundle varies in width from a thread to three, four. and five in ches, in unusual samples
 Bends, Stretches and Resists Heat
 Tn the whole amazing range of crystals of various substances with the perfect organizing, sectoring and cutting found in nature, no cyrs- tals are probably more remarkable than asbestos, Imagine a smoke stack 1000 feet high. This approxi- mates the proportions of an asbestos fiber crystal. Now If the smoke Sl5Eh VIII DEIltl lIhc h Nl!lON III Liic wind and stretch like q stiff spring: if if can resist terrific heat, and be impervious to practically all acids, oxygen and moisture, it can do what tthe marvellous asbestos crystal does. If one takes 2 block of asbestos and ruhs the crystal bundles lengthwise B 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 nobles and even Charle- magne liked a few parlor tricks with their demi-tasse. To set the mouths of their guests agape they nonchal- antly threw table cloths into char coal burners. But visitors who dash cd for the exits must have come