Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1913 — Ancient Asbestos. [ARTICLE]

Ancient Asbestos.

There was a winding sheet of amianthus in the Vatican library, soft and pliable in the hand, and showing indications of Ignition upon one corner. The cloth, however, did not suffer. This burning Is taken as showing that some combustible fiber had been Intermingled. Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, reported & cloth which the natives of territory now included in Russian Siberia claimed as having been made of salamander skin. Mateo Polo satisfied himself, so it seems, that he had to do with a mineral substance. In fact, he found out something as to its manufacture. In this same general region of country asbestos is today known to exist. We are not to regard asbestos as a single, definite mineral. Nor are we to understand that there is a fixed chemical constitution. Certain forms of hornblende and serpentine, if fibrous, are regarded as asbestos. —Cassier’s Magazine.