18'0 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1685. 



That this linen was very well known to the ancients, beside that of Pliny, 

 we have the further testimony of Cselius Rhodiginus, who places both the 

 materials and manufacture of it in India; and Paulus Venetus more particularly 

 in Tartary, the emperor of which, he says, sent a piece of it to Pope Alexander. 

 It is also mentioned by Varro; and Turnebus in his commentary upon him, De 

 Lingua Latina, as a thing inconsumable by fire. In these latter ages: George 

 Agricola relates, that there was a mantle of this linen at Vereburg in Saxony; 

 and Simon Majolus says, he saw another of it at Louvain exposed to the fire. 

 Salmuth also acquaints \is, that one Podocattarus, a Cyprian knight, showed it 

 publicly at Venice, throwing it into the fire without scruple or hurt; and Mr. 

 Lassells saw a piece of it in the curious cabinet of Manfred Septalla, canon 

 of Milan. Mr. Ray was showed a purse of it, by the Prince Palatine at 

 Heidelberg, which he saw put into a pan of burning charcoal, till it was 

 thoroughly ignited, without receiving any harm; and we are told in the Burgun- 

 dian philosophy, of a long rope of it, sent from Signer Bocconi to the French 

 King, and kept by M. Marchand, in the king's gardens at Paris, which though 

 steeped in oil and put in the fire, is not consumed. To which add, that we 

 have now seen a piece of this linen pass the fiery trial, both at London and 

 Oxford. 



This substance has several names ; as, 1 • Amianthus, because the fire is so 

 far from spoiling it, that it rather gives it a lusture. 2. Asbestos, or unex- 

 tinguishable. 3. Salamander, or salamander's wool ; I suppose from the thry- 

 allides or candle-wicks said to be anciently made of it. 4. From a pungent 

 quality which Agricola says it has on the tongue, without astringency, it is 

 otherwise called alumen, with the distinguishing epithet plumeum, taken from 

 its downy filaments, to discriminate it from the other alums. 5. From the 

 light gray colour of its lanuginous parts, it is called by some polia; by others 

 corsoides; and from its likeness to the hoary fibres of some sort of matweed, 

 spartopolia. 6. From the capacity it has of being spun into thread, it is also 

 called linum, or flax, with some distinguishing epithet, taken either from its 

 quality, such as asbestinum, or vivum ; or from the place where found, it being 

 called in general linum fossile, earth-flax, and in particular linum Indicum, 

 Creticum, Cyprium, Carpasium, Carystium. But besides these places, which 

 have given epithets to the threads made of it, it is also found in Tartary, at 

 Namur, in the Low-countries, atEisfeld inThuringia; among the mines in the 

 old Noricum; somewhere in Egypt, and in the mountains of Arcadia; at 

 Puteoli, and in some mines of Italy. To which we may add our own country, 

 it having been lately found in a small island, called Ynis Molroniad, in the 

 parish of Llan-Fair yng Hornwy, in Anglesey in Wales. 



