Asbestos, Its production and use With some account of the asbestos mines of Canada — A Reader’s Guide

From Letters to a London Friend

The book's structure is shaped by its origin as correspondence. Jones explains in the preface that the substance of the work “was originally comprised in a series of Letters from Canada to a friend in London, who was desirous of obtaining all the authentic information possible.” This epistolary foundation explains the direct, observational tone and the frequent use of first-person accounts. The reader encounters the mines through Jones's own visits, as when he describes walking the ground at Broughton “in company with the late Mr. Fraser” in autumn 1886. These personal details lend credibility and immediacy, but they also mean the coverage is uneven: some mines are described in detail, while others, like the one at Danville, are noted only from secondhand reports. Jones candidly admits when he lacks firsthand knowledge, writing of Danville, “I much regret that time did not permit of a visit to this mine, so I can give no details of my own personal knowledge.”

The Paradox of a Mineral That Burns Clean

Jones repeatedly emphasizes asbestos's contradictory nature, calling it “a mineralogical vegetable” and “a floating stone.” He notes that it can be “carded, spun, and woven into tissue as cotton or the finest silk,” yet it is a rock. The historical anecdote of Charlemagne throwing an asbestos cloth into fire to clean it serves as a recurring touchstone, and Jones adds a modern Quebec parallel about a labourer whose boots were thrown into a stove. These stories illustrate the mineral's fire-resistant property without relying on technical jargon. The book also catalogues the various names for asbestos across languages—steinflachs (stone-flax) in German, amianto in Italian—each highlighting a different aspect of its utility. This linguistic survey reinforces the idea that asbestos has long fascinated different cultures, though Jones does not explore the historical record beyond these brief mentions.

Distinctive Ore and Local Geology

A striking feature of the book is Jones's attention to the visual and physical differences among asbestos ores from different Canadian localities. At Broughton, he observes that the ore has “a pale yellowish hue, as distinguished from the greenish metallic lustre which distinguishes the finer samples from Thetford.” He adds that this colour difference “at once identifies the locality of its production” and that an expert can tell the source by inspection. Such specificity suggests that Jones was writing for an audience of potential investors or manufacturers who needed to evaluate ore quality. He also notes the presence of associated minerals, such as soapstone (steatite) at Broughton, and describes a curious specimen that had “all the grain and even the fibrous markings of asbestos” but was pure steatite. These geological observations ground the book in practical field experience.

Mining Methods and Vein Behaviour

The excerpts from the mining sections reveal a practical, on-the-ground perspective. At Broughton, Jones describes an open cut “15 to 20 feet deep by 8 feet wide following the vein” and notes that the serpentine reef is exposed for about 900 feet. He recounts how water in the cut prevented him from tracing the big veins, and he infers that “a sudden dip downwards” would require considerable expense to reach the seam again. The strike and dip are given precisely: “east and west, and the dip 30°.” At Danville, he reports that faults are numerous and that some good veins two inches thick are “cut off completely at a distance of fifty feet from the surface.” These details, drawn from personal inspection or reliable reports, give the reader a concrete sense of the challenges and uncertainties of asbestos mining in the 1880s.

Jones's book is best read as a contemporary document of industrial exploration, not a comprehensive treatise. The reader should note that the author's firsthand knowledge is limited to the mines he visited, and that his enthusiasm for asbestos's potential is balanced by candid admissions of ignorance. The work's value lies in its specific observations of ore colour, vein structure, and mining difficulties, which are reported without the hindsight of later health concerns. Approached as a period piece, it offers a vivid snapshot of how a promising mineral was understood and exploited in the late nineteenth century.

There’s something touching about Jones’s careful notes on Canadian asbestos veins, that patient faith in a material’s strange usefulness. It reminds me of the quiet optimism in old technical manuals generally—how someone once believed a knob or a wire could tame fire itself. That same earnest ingenuity lingers in Electric Gas Lighting: How to Install Electric Gas Ignition Apparatus — Reading Companion, a book I keep meaning to revisit. Both feel like letters from a braver age.