CHAP. 4.—LINEN MADE OF ASBESTOS.
There has been invented also a kind of linen which is
incombustible by flame. It is generally known as "live"[1] linen,
and I have seen, before now, napkins[2] that were made of it
thrown into a blazing fire, in the room where the guests were
at table, and after the stains were burnt out, come forth from
the flames whiter and cleaner than they could possibly have
been rendered by the aid of water. It is from this material
that the corpse-cloths of monarchs are made, to ensure the
separation of the ashes of the body from those of the pile.
This substance grows[3] in the deserts of India,[4] scorched by
the burning rays of the sun: here, where no rain is ever
known to fall, and amid multitudes of deadly serpents, it becomes habituated to resist the action of fire. Rarely to be
found, it presents considerable difficulties in weaving it into a
tissue, in consequence of its shortness; its colour is naturally
red, and it only becomes white through the agency of fire.
By those who find it, it is sold at prices equal to those given
for the finest pearls; by the Greeks it is called "asbestinon,"[5]
a name which indicates its peculiar properties. Anaxilaüs[6]
makes a statement to the effect that if a tree is surrounded
with linen made of this substance, the noise of the blows
given by the axe will be deadened thereby, and that the tree may
be cut down without their being heard. For these qualities it
is that this linen occupies the very highest rank among all the
kinds that are known.
The next rank is accorded to the tissue known as "byssus,"[7]
an article which is held in the very highest estimation by
females, and is produced in the vicinity of Elis, in Achaia.[8] I
find it stated by some writers that a scruple of this sold for-
merly at four denarii, the same rate, in fact, as gold. The
downy nap of linen, and more particularly that taken from
the sails of sea-going ships, is very extensively employed for
medicinal purposes, and the ashes of it have the same virtues
as spodium.[9] Among the poppies, too,[10] there is a variety which
imparts a remarkable degree of whiteness to fabrics made of
linen.
1. "Vivum."
2. He evidently considers asbestus, or amianthus, to be a vegetable, and
not a mineral production. It is, in reality, a mineral, with long flexible
filaments, of a silky appearance, and is composed of silica, magnesia, and
lime. The wicks of the inextinguishable lamps of the middle ages, the
existence of which was an article of general belief, were said to be made
of asbestus. Paper and lace, even, have been made of it in modern
times.
3. "Nascitur." In the year 1702 there was found near the Nævian
Gate, at Rome, a funereal urn, in which there was a skull, calcined bones,
and other ashes, enclosed in a cloth of asbestus, of a marvellous length.
It is still preserved in the Vatican.
4. On the contrary, it is found in the Higher Alps in the vicinity of
the Glaciers, in Scotland, and in Siberia, even.
5. Signifying "inextinguishable," from a, "not," and sbe/nnumi, "to
extinguish." See B. xxxvii. c. 54.
6. See end of this Book.
7. He evidently alludes to cotton fabrics under this name. See Note 37
to c. 2 of this Book.
8. Pausanias, in his Eliaca, goes so far as to say, that byssus was found
only in Elis, and nowhere else. Judging from the variable temperature
of the climate, it is very doubtful, Fée says, if cotton was grown there
at all. Arrian, Apollonius, and Philostratus say that the tree which produced the byssus had the leaves of the willow, and the shape of the poplar, characteristics which certainly do not apply to the cotton-tree.
9. Impure oxide of metals, collected from the chimneys of smelting-houses.
Fée says that Pliny on this occasion is right.
10. In B. xx. c. 79, he speaks of the "heraclion" poppy, supposed by
some of the commentators to be identical with the one mentioned here.