84 ROADS AM) i;ailwavs. 



ASBESTOS. -MK. K. H. JONKS. 



As the new line of railway opens uj) tliat poition o.'' the is- 

 land in whieh asbestos has been ibiind, ami where there is every 

 reason for believing it will Iteeoine a \alual)le branch of onr 

 mining indnstry, the following extracts from a letter which 

 appeared in the Harhimr (,'n(r,' Stamhtnl of May lOth, 1893, 

 from the pen of Mi'. R. H. Jones, will be j'oniid interesting. 

 Mr. .Jones, who is an Englishman, has lieen two years in this 

 country, and has opened an asbesto< mine near Port-au-Poi't. 

 He is an able mineralogist and an expert in asbestos, having 

 Avritten one of the best books on that mint'ral : 



"Asbestos is serpentine, simply ser2)entine in a tibrous form ; 

 bnt when you ask me how it comes to l)e in that peculiar form, 

 yon go a step or two beyond me. No oni' knows how or why 

 this should l)e so. Asl)estos is by no means the only nuneral 

 which assumes this strange form ; we cannot tell you Avhy. In 

 the present state of oui' knowledge, we simply know that it is- 

 so. It is found in this state in every part of the world, but, 

 strange to say, it is not fouml in any two places alike. It varies 

 not only in colour, but in strangely different forms of crystalli- 

 zation, just accordiug to the 2:ilace in which it is found. It is- 

 most usually found in Canada of a light or dark green colour, 

 sometimes andter, at other times it takes a fine golden tint, 

 although really the colour has little to do with its value for 

 commercial purposes ; because, as a matter of fact, when the 

 fine silky fibre is teased out, it is mostly white, whatever shade 

 it may assume in its rockdike foi-ni. In that state it takes the 

 colour of the nu)ther rock, and that varies very much according 

 to local surroundings. In Australia it is frequently of a bluish 

 green, taking exactly the peculiar colour of the foliage of the 

 eucalyptus, that wonderful Australian tree which has such mani- 

 fohl uses ; and in South Africa, near the Orange River, it is 

 found of a dark Prussian blue colour. In many other idaces, 

 in the Pyrenees and the Savoy, for instance, it is of a pure 

 white. The most valuable (juality is found in the Quebec pro- 

 vince of Lower Canada. Here it takes a singularly beautiful 



