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Show The Thing Fire Won't Burn l 1 1 E housekeeper who firat nuido ac-J ac-J quaintancc with asbestos as a stove-i stove-i mat now uses it as a stove polisher, &skba us a flatiron holder, as a lamp wick, and as u fircpad under her gas burner, says a writer in tho Technical World Most likely, like-ly, loo, her kitchen range is lined with it. Our dwelling houses are firc'proofed with asbestos wall plaster, asbestos roofing material and asbestos asbes-tos paint. In office buildings and factories the steam pipes arc overlaid with asbestos covering, and the boilers with asbcrftos cement. Machinists use abesloa yarn' or wick for packing piston rods and valve steins, and sybcslos mill board os a joint packing. The modern theatre bos firc-proof stage curtains cur-tains of asbeatos cloth and the best-cquipped firemen wear asbestos uniforms. Storage rooms on ocean steamships are lined with usbestos, and it is equally serviceable in the domestic refrigerator. refrig-erator. Chemists find asbestos fiber the best niter medium; nnd because of ila non-absorbing qualities, it is valued in hospitals. Known to some extent in ancient Greece and Egypt, the existence and uses of asbestos seem afterward to have been forgotten unlil qnile recent re-cent years. Since tSSO, the Italian mines have been the chief source of supply in Europe and until twenty-five ycar3 ago thev were the only mines in the world. At the present time, however, how-ever, asbestos is being mined in arying quantities in Russia, Auetraha and Africa, and mott lurgcly of all in America. It occurs iu some nine or ten of the States, of which Georgia produces the largest quantity and Vermont the highest grades. But of the grades suitable for Ihc highest class of manufacture which, in other words, means the grades nuitable for spinning and weaviug the province of Quebec has practically a world monopoly. |