Asbestos charecteristics

So little, indeed, is it
affected by the dissolving influences of time that the action of
unnumbered centuries, by which the hardest rocks known to
geologists are worn away, has had no perceptible effect on the
asbestos found embedded in them. Whilst the greater portion
of its bulk is composed of the roughest and most gritty mate-
rials known, it is really as smooth to the touch as soap or oil.
Apparently as combustible as tow, the fiercest heat cannot
consume it, and no combination of acids will affect the appear-
ance and strength of its fibre, even after days of exposure to
its action.*

Its peculiar properties thus endow it with practical inde-
structibility, and enable it to resist decay and destruction
under almost every condition of heat and moisture, even pre-
serving it from undergoing any deleterious change when
brought into contact with superheated steam or grease ; nor
is it even worn away or rendered useless by the severe treat-
ment it undergoes in connection with marine, hydraulic, or
other engines. So little influence of a chemical nature does it
exert over any metal with which it is brought in contact that,
if a joint be broken, the surfaces will be found entirely free
from corrosion. Its incombustible nature and slow conduction
of heat render it also a complete protection from flames. In
its crude state, therefore, it is keenly sought for, whilst, as a
manufactured article, it must necessarily command a high price
until more extensive sources of supplj' than those at present
available are discovered.

The most important characteiistic of asbestos is its fireproof
quality, which was well-known to and appreciated by the
ancients. In our own time it is also known as a useful non-
Growth, the addition of homogeneons body substance, is absolutely
universal. The inorganic crystal grows by absorbing homogeneous
matter from the surrounding fluid medium, which then passes from a
fluid into a solid condition. The only difference between the growth of a
crystal and that of the simplest organic individual, the cell, is that the
former adds the new substance externally, while the latter absorbs it
internally.