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in the museums of several of the cities in Italy. The old story of the 

 table cloth of Charlemagne is doubtless familiar to many of you, in 

 ■which it is stated that he used to draw this cloth from the table, all 

 soiled with the debris of his feasts, and in the presence of his guests 

 throw it upon the blazing hie, from which it was soon taken, cleansed 

 from all impurity. This peculiarity, however, probably applies to a 

 cloth made from the true abestus and not from the chrysotile, the differ- 

 ence in which will be pointed out as we proceed, but which varies from 

 the other somewhat in composition. To the former variety, also, pro- 

 bably belongs the garment described in the story so quaintly given in 

 the book by Montpetit, concerning the French habitant, in which he 

 relates that at a certain lumber camp in one of our great northern 

 forests, one of the men, newly engaged, upon his return from his day's 

 work in the soft melting snow, when the rest of the crew were gathered 

 about the stove, coolly proceeded to remove his boots, and then his socks 

 which he dashed into the open fire. He, however, speedily extricated 

 his foot gear, now cleansed to immaculate whiteness, and proceeded to 

 dress his feet as if nothing unusual had occurred, a proceeding which, 

 it is needless to say, among a group of people unaccustomed to witness 

 such marvels, resulted in something stronger even than amazement, and 

 with a sudden accession of terror at the presence of a man who could 

 thus perform such miracles with apparently flaming garments, they incon- 

 tinently fled and left the uncanny stranger undisputed master of the 

 situation, under the impression that he could be no other than the evil 

 one himself. Explanation was of no avail, and the men refused to 

 return to work until the foreman had discharged absolutely the unfor- 

 tunate wearer of asbestus socks. 



Somewhat analogous to this is the story related to me by one of the 

 local managers of an asbestus mine in Colei-aine township. This gen- 

 tleman, also, was the fortunate possessor of a pair of asbestus mittens 

 and under the impression that these were indestructible by fire, and 

 desirous of astonishing the crowd which was gathered around the 

 stove in a country store proceeded to throw one of them into the 

 flames within. The success of the wished for miracle was not, 

 however, equal to Ins expectation, since upon withdrawing his 

 mitten from the flames, after a short interval, it was found 



