INCREASING USE OF ASBESTOS. 283 



INCREASING USE OF ASBESTOS. 



Persons of a certain age can all remember when at different dates in the past, 

 the newspapers contained rather exciting statements of fact or rumor respecting 

 new practical illustrations of asbestos, by which important branches of industry 

 were to be speedily revolutionized. These statements generally seemed invested 

 with some degree of probability in view or in recollection of known facts. Several 

 ancient writers speak of cloths made of the strange mineral, which were used 

 for .various purposes. Dead bodies, for example, were wrapped in asbestos cloth, 

 that in burning, the ashes of the person might be kept separate from the ashes of 

 the wood. Perpetual lamps to be suspended in tombs and in temples were fur- 

 nished with asbestos wicks — which burned without being consumed. Not only 

 nets but garments for ordinary wear were made of it, and they were not washed 

 when dirty, but were cleaned with fire. In an age somewhat nearer our own Em- 

 peror Charles V is recorded to have had a complete table set of the unconsumable 

 material. In Corsica various articles of household use are made of it in union 

 with a clay found in the island. In parts of Italy asbestos lace is valued, while 

 the asbestos girdles of the Pyrenees, the asbestos caps of Siberia, etc., are curiosi- 

 ties inquired for and regarded with some interest. Asbestos garments for firemen 

 were the brief sensation of Paris some years ago. 



Of late years, in Germany, asbestos seems to have been gradually meeting 

 with practical application in a variety of ways and on quite an extensive scale in 

 some of them. The great capacity in resisting heat and disturbing forces from 

 without possessed by the material recommends it for use in connection with the 

 steam engine. Great technical difficulties had to be overcome in preparing or 

 adapting it for the purposes of practical utility, but these difficulties appear to 

 have been completely conquered, and we learn that the stuffing box of a 300 

 horse-power winding engine working day and night in connection with a mine in 

 Hernsdorf, near Waldenburg, was packed with asbestos on the 15th of Novem- 

 ber, 1877, and at the end of seven months was found to be literally unaffected by 

 use, the material looking exactly as on the day it was put in. In the water-works 

 at Dresden, on a railway in Silesia and in various other parts of Germany, the 

 same material has been on trial now during some years in connection with steam 

 engines where its peculiar qualities suggest its use, with the most successful results. 

 Neither the greatest pressure nor exposure to the greatest heat overcomes its power 

 of resistance or affects it in any way. It is found not to need the close watching that 

 is necessary with other materials, and it has in some positions the great advantage 

 that its slippery property almost dispenses with the use of grease, requiring it in 

 the smallest quantity. In a word, the Germans appear to be captivated by the 

 thing, and to anticipate its extension to purposes not yet thought of, as well as its 

 continued use in those cases wherein it has been tried. 



The Germans admit that the Americans were the first to think seriously of the 

 wide employment of asbestos in the field of industry, though they are of opinion 

 that they have not gone on as they began. Asbestos, it may be worth while to 



