OF CORNWALL. 113 
an afbeftos lately found in the parifh of St. Clare, near the town of 
Lifkerd, by the Reverend Mr. Vofper, in the month of March 
1756. It was firft difcovered about 150 yards, South-Weft of the 
church, in an orchard belonging to the vicarage, but afterwards in 
feveral ftones of the adjacent grounds ; fome of it of a light yellow, 
adheres to the outftde of a green hard fandy killas, this is fhort 
jointed, and not flexile, but it lies in veins generally, courflng in a 
wavy line “ through the tender gritty cinereous killas before menti- 
oned, page 92. The veins of N°. i. are of like colour to the mother 
ftone, from the tenth of an inch to three inches wide ; this is what is 
called by Authors 0 the whitifh brown ftlky afbeftos, with long, con- 
tinued flat filaments ; it is not equally fine in all the ftones wherein 
it appears ; in fome famples the afbeftos is very downy, and the 
filaments rife flat and eafily, from one inch to two inches and an 
half long. N°. ii. Is the amiantus jibris mollibus parallelis facile fepa- 
rabilibus of authors p . N°. iii. is in its exteriour like decayed willow 
wood ; in other famples the fibres are three inches long, but more ftony, 
rounder, more compact, and heavier, fcarce at all plumous ; this 
third fort I take to be the Amiantos fibris durioribus in lamellas 
crafftores compaElis ponderofus * . 
There is another fort mentioned by Grew r , called the <c baftard 
amiantus which grows in veins in a clay and mundick load between 
beds of a greenifh earth in our Cornifh mines ; the threads being 
one third or near half an inch long of a glofly black colour and 
brittle.” Oi the more downy forts of this ftone, the ancients had 
the art of making a kind of cloth refembling linen, it had this An- 
gular property that no fire would injure it, for which reafon it was 
called Linum incomb uflibik, and the ufe of it was to fhroud the 
dead bodies of princes, fo as to preferve their afhes pure, and un- 
mixed from thofe of the funeral pile. Pliny lib. xix. chap. 1 . fays, 
that he had feen napkins made of this linen which after being ufed 
at table, were thrown into the fire, and thereby cleaned better than 
if they had been waflied with water. The ancients made alfo 
nets of this ftone, and reticulated caps for the head ; it was alfo 
ufed as wicks for lamps, in which it proved fo retentive of the fire, 
that Callimachus at Athens dedicated a golden lamp to Minerva, 
which continued burning, by means of the lint of this ftone im- 
merfed in oil, for a whole year without being extinguished : Paufa- 
nias in Atticis, chap. xxvi. A lamp of the fame kind burnt in the 
temple of Jupiter Hammon * . It is to be obferved however, that 
wicks for lamps made of the afbeftos do not yield fo bright a flame 
n See plate XXV. fig. xxx. “> See Linnaeus, page 1 63, ibidem. 
0 See Hill’s foffils, page 102. r Mufeum of the Royal Society, page 313. 
v See Linnaeus Syft. Nat. page 162. • Plutarch de def. Orac. 
G g 
as 
