You are here

قراءة كتاب Asbestos, Its production and use With some account of the asbestos mines of Canada

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
Asbestos, Its production and use
With some account of the asbestos mines of Canada

Asbestos, Its production and use With some account of the asbestos mines of Canada

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 4

value could be easily determined on inspection. In the Gorobtagsdat district of Perm, again, there are said to be large deposits cropping out above the surface, and also that enormous quantities could be had there for nothing, as at this moment it possesses no value in the Ural region. I imagine it would be found of considerable value if a practical man were sent out to see to its fiberization on the spot, when it might be compressed, packed, and exported in the same way as cotton. There can, however, be little doubt that if its quality is as good as it is represented to be, it will very soon be utilized, and will then form a very important addition to the vast mineral wealth of that region.

As might be expected, asbestos is also found in China, but, as a matter of course, the use to which it is put there is one we should little dream of here. For instance, in the translation of a Chinese medical book by Dr. Hobson, of the London Medical Mission, asbestos is seen to figure (of all places in the world) under the head of tonics, in company with such heterogeneous substances as "dried spotted lizard, silkworm moth, human milk, parasite of the mulberry tree, asses' glue, stalactite," and a few more surprising things. Perhaps it may be just as well for us that we are not yet educated up to so fine a point as that, and that consequently the mineral we are speaking of does not yet find a place in the British Pharmacopœia, but is left to exhibit its apparently more natural properties in the arts and manufactures.

A correspondent of The Financial News, writing from Barberton in January, 1888, says that at Komali Fields, fifty miles from that place, asbestos has just been found, but that it was as yet too soon to discuss the merits of the find.

In sending you an account of the Canadian asbestos industry, you will scarcely expect me to give you any very detailed information about its Italian competitor. Any account of the one, however, would necessarily be so incomplete without some mention of the other, that I will do the best I can with the little information I have been enabled to obtain on the subject of the Italian mines.

Experiments with the view of utilizing asbestos in Italy appear to have been first successfully carried on in 1850 by the Chevalier Aldini, of Milan, and others, mainly with the object of turning the mineral to account in the manufacture of asbestos cloth. The Chevalier had a complete suit made of it—cap, gloves, tunic, and stockings—for the purpose of testing its protective powers for firemen; and of this I shall have something to say presently.[3] But it was not until twenty years after this that any success was attained in the manufacture of asbestos millboard and paper, the commercial value of which is now assuming such large proportions.

About the same time the manufacture of asbestos into packings for piston glands was successfully accomplished in America; and some two years afterwards a company, calling itself "The Patent Asbestos Manufacturing Company, Limited," was formed in Glasgow for the purpose of making piston packings according to this American invention. In 1880 this Glasgow Company united its business with that of Messrs. Furse Brothers and Co., of Rome, asbestos manufacturers, as well as with that of the Italo-English Pure Asbestos Company, and, when the amalgamation was complete, the new Company, taking the name of "The United Asbestos Company, Limited," became possessed of nearly the whole of the known Italian mines, and, consequently, of a practical monopoly of the trade in asbestos from that country.

Italian differs very materially from Canadian asbestos, not only in appearance, but in formation also, as well as in the mode of extraction. The two are, in fact, entirely separate and distinct kinds of the same mineral; notwithstanding which their intrinsic qualities are practically the same, and the uses to which they are put are almost identical.

An extraordinary specimen of Italian asbestos, obtained from one of the mines of the United Asbestos Company, situate in the Valtellina Valley, is in the possession of that company, and is no doubt the finest piece of asbestos ever brought from Italy, whether as regards strength or fineness of fibre. Any one interested in the matter would, I have no doubt, be readily permitted to inspect this natural curiosity, on application to Mr. Boyd, the courteous manager of the company, in Queen Victoria Street.

Just about this time (1880) Canadian asbestos, also, was being much talked about and sought after; and it is therefore perhaps scarcely to be wondered at that the company which first began to work the mineral in Italy on a large scale, and which, at great expense and trouble, had managed to secure the whole of the Italian mines, and so become possessed, as they supposed, of a monopoly of the trade, should have viewed with jealousy the rapid progress made in public estimation by the Canadian ore when once it was introduced to the market.

It is not my purpose, however, to enter on the vexed question of the relative merits of the two varieties, which would be altogether out of place in a letter of this kind. But I think we may safely conclude that both possess undeniably good qualities, and that there is an ample field for both, inasmuch as the peculiar properties which render one kind unsuitable for some particular purpose are often precisely those which best adapt it for another. Each variety will assuredly make its own way and take its proper place in public estimation as further experiments and greater experience in the use of it shall bring its special value more prominently to light.

Ample proof has been given of the valuable qualities of Italian asbestos; and if any proof were needed of the intrinsic value of its Canadian competitor, nothing more would be required than to point to such houses as that of John Bell & Son, of London; of Wertheim, of Frankfort; or to the Johns Manufacturing Company, or the Chalmers-Spence Company, of New York, whose world-renowned manufactures are made of Canadian asbestos alone.

The essential characteristics of both sorts are alike in this respect, that they are absolutely indestructible by fire, or even when exposed to the action of any known acid; the Canadian variety possessing in addition, in a very high degree, that strange peculiarity (which is also claimed for one of the Italian sorts), and is common also to plumbago and soapstone, of being a self-lubricator. Good Canadian fibre is known at once by its soft, greasy, soapy feeling; and one of the leading New York firms claims for its products, made entirely of Canadian asbestos, that they will resist even the flame of the blowpipe; and further asserts that this mineral transcends all previously thought-of materials for fireproofing, in that it is not only absolutely indestructible by fire, but that its power of resistance cannot be worn away or diminished by lapse of time or hard usage, as invariably happens in the case of such applications as tungstate of soda.

Regarding its use, Germany is a very large consumer. In France the consumption is not so great, although manufacturers in that country are now beginning to bestir themselves, especially in regard to some very valuable kinds of paper, which they are making entirely out of Canadian fibre; and Paris has now set the world an example by the adoption of the Chevalier Aldini's plan of clothing firemen in a dress of asbestos cloth.

America, however, is the country where the most rapid strides are being made in the development of every branch of this new industry, and there also the Canadian

Pages