Asbestus Making

If any readers have ever made the aoquaintance of asbestus at all it, has no doubt been iu the shape of backing to a gas stove or a firebrick. Very few peopie outside the trade know what enormous quantities are utilized where machinery is used. The business done in domestic asbestus is a mere bagatelle compared with that got through in packing for stéam boilers and jngine pistons. Asbestus in its original state is a fibrous mineral indigenous to Canada and other places and is sent over here iu lumps like pieces of raw slate on the top and bottom, while thesides are covered with a fluffy substance - the fiber, when it is pulled frorn the bulk. You an piek each lump to pieces with your nails, althongh to look at it one would think that nothing lesa than a heavy hammer would make any impression on it. When it reaches the factory, it is put into crushers. These are like the ordinary mortar mixers that you see where building operations are going on, and the resulting gritty, fluffy mass is thrown into what is termed a "devil. " The devil tears it op with sharp prongs and then sifts the grit frona the fluff. The former is used for mixing with the asbestus in other processes, while the Jatter is shot into a reoeptacle that reduces it to a consistency almost as fine as cotton wool. As it falls from this machine it looks for all thti world like snow. In other departments the raw asbestus is crushed and then mixed with certain earths to be used for covering the outer surfacus of steam boilers, asbestus being a nonconductor óf heat. Then, again, large quantities of millboard are made for packing between fireproof doors and articles of that description, while occasionally it goes to form one of the main cotistituents in a