VOL. XV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. \^g 



paper, on which it was laid : it was presently cool, and on weighing it again, 

 was found to have lost 1 dr. 6 grs. 



Dec. 3, Mr. Arthur Bayly, F. R. S. presented them with a piece of this 

 linen, in the name of Mr. Waite. At the same time he presented Dr. Plot 

 with another piece of it, which being brought to Oxford, the experiment was 

 again repeated on it, Dec. l6, it being put into a strong charcoal fire in the 

 Natural History School, in a full meeting of the Philosophical Society of that 

 university; where after it had continued red-hot for some considerable time, it 

 was taken forth again little altered when cold, saving that it seemed a little 

 whiter and cleaner than before it was put in. Concerning which. Dr. Plot, 

 being desired to offer his thoughts, drew up the following discourse, which was 

 read before the said Society, June the 23d, An. l685. 



A Discourse concerning the Incombustible Cloth above mentioned. By Robert 



Plot, LL.D. N° 172, p. 1051. 



The incombustible cloth was greatly esteemed by the ancients, among whom 

 it was more common, and perhaps better known, than it is yet among us, 

 equally precious with the best of pearls. Nor is it now of mean value, even in 

 the country where made, a China covet, which is a piece 23^ inches long, be- 

 ing worth 83 tale, that is, 361. 13s. 4d. The reality of such a thing has been 

 either doubted or denied by very good authors ; who, though they allowed such 

 a mineral as amianthus, out of the woolly part whereof this sort of linen was 

 always anciently said to be made, yet questioned the possibility of its having 

 been actually done: Dalecampius holding it very incredible, that it should be 

 woven into cloth, by reason of its shortness ; and Schildius, in his Commentary 

 on Suetonius, absolutely denying it. Boxhornius indeed does not deny but that 

 there might be such linen among the Indians, where the materials of it grow ; 

 of which they might make funeral shrouds for the bodies of their princes, and 

 so preserve their ashes distinct from those of the pile in which they were burnt : 

 but he is peremptory that the Romans never used any such ; and so is Isaac 

 Casaubon. The truth whereof I shall not dispute : but whether they did or 

 not, I am sure they might, had they pleased ; for Pliny says expressly, that he 

 himself had seen napkins of it, which being taken foul from the board at a 

 great feast, were cast into the fire, by which means they were better scoured, 

 and looked fairer and cleaner, than if they had been washed in water. Now if 

 they had such napkins, they might doubtless have had sheets of it too, and have 

 put them to the use above-mentioned, had they thought it expedient, as it is 

 said the Tartarian princes and others do at this very day. 



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