THE USES OF ASBESTOS

North Otago Times, 2 December 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE USES OF ASBESTOS

My day's work consists ol making asbestos millboard joints and tubes, tbo firm by. whom I am employed contracting for about 10,000 ol these articles yearly, There are probably thousands ol people in this country who do not know what asbestos is, or to what various uses it is put, so a word about this wonderful substance will hot, perhaps, be out of Place.

Asbestos Is a kind of rock of a fibrous nature, and is found chiefly in Italy, Canada, and Russia, the Italian variety being the best. The great value of asbestos rests in the fact that It is quite Dreproof and heat resisting. In its first stage of manufacture It Is crushed by heavy rollers spun, and then woven in looms similar to those that weave ordinary cloth, From the woven asbestos cloth dozens of articles are made, some of which are the fireproof curtains you sec at our theatres, asbestos suits, gloves, and helmets for firemen and men who work in furnaces or very hot places.

Owing to Its great heat-resisting properties, asbestos is also used extensively in the making of joints and packing for boilers and engines, and has proved quite invaluable to engineers,-

The short kind of asbestos is beaten to a pulp and made into fireproof millboard and paper, which is employed for a variety of purposes. I have mentioned only a very few of the articles made from asbestos, but the uses of this rcmarkablo mineral are quite Innumerable.