The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

USES OF ASBESTOS. 393
Plutarch speaks in similar terms of napkins, nets, and head-
dresses, made of the Carystian stone, but says, that it was no
longer found in his time, only thin veins of it, hke hairs, being
discoverable in the rock*.
Mr. Hawkins ascertained, that the rock, which was quarried
in Mount Ocha, now called St. Elias, above Carystus, is the
Cipohno of the Roman antiquariesf. Further north in the
same island Dr. Sibthorp observed " rocks of Serpentine in beds
of saline marble, forming the Verdantique of the ancientst :''
and he states, that on the shore to the north of Negropont
" the rocks are composed of serpentine stone with veins of as-
bestos and soapstone intermixed§." Tournefort speaks cf
Amiantus as brought from Ca \:~io in his time, but of inferior
quahtyll.
Pausanias (i. 26. 7.) says, the wick of the golden lamp which
was kept burning night and day in the temple of Minerva
Pohas at Athens, was "of Carpasian flax, the only kind of
flax which is indestructible by fire." This " Carpasian flax"
was asbestos from the vicinity of Carpasus, a town near the
north-east corner of C3'prus, which retains its ancient name.
Carjjas.
Dioscorides (L. v. c. 93.) gives a similar account of the quali-
ties and uses of Amiantus, and says it was produced in Cyprusll.
Majolus says**, that in the year 1566 he saw at Venice Podo-
cattarus, a knight of Cyprus, and a writer on the history of that
island, who exhibited at Venice cloth made of the asbestos of sk.
his country, which he threw into the fire, and took it out unin-
jured and made quite clean.
says,
Referring to Cyprus, Sonnini [Voyage en Grece, i. ]}. 66.)
L'amiante, asbestos, on lin incombustible des anciens, est encore aussi abon-
* De Oraculonun Defectu, p. 770. ed. H. Stephani, Par. 1372.
t Travels in various Countries of the East, edited by Walpole, p. 288.
t Ibid. p. 37.
§ Ibid. p. 38.—N. B. Asbestos is always found in rocks of Serpentine.
II Voyage, English Translation, vol. i. p. 129.
ir See p. 392.
** Dier. Canicular. Part I. Collog. xx. p. 453.