INCLINED PLANE. See MECHANICS. • INCLOSURES. See AGRICULTURE. INCOMBUSTIBLE CLOTH, is the name of a species of cloth which resists the action of fire. It has been known for many centuries, that a mineral substance called abestos.
can resist the action of fire ; and that some species admit of division into fine slender threads of a lanuginous appear ance. These in general are very short and brittle, but with careful attention in the separation, they may be obtained several inches in length. The ancients, availing themselves of the peculiar property of asbestos, devised means of work ing it into cloth. Pliny and Dioscorides speak of asbestine cloth nearly in the same terms. Pliny, in one passage, re marks the incombustible nature of asbestos ; and in ano ther he speaks as if he had actually seen napkins made of it, \which, being thrown into the fire (luting entertainments, were much better cleansed and came out whiter than if they had been washed with water. Dioscorides says, that cc cloth is prepared from the asbestos of Cyprus, which, being thrown into the fire, burns, but is unconsu rued, and comes more splendid from the flames." Besides the pre ceding obsert ation, Pliny adds, that from this property the cloth was used to preserve the ashes of kings w hen their bodies were committed to the funeral pile. We find occa sional allusions to asbestine cloth ever since the age of Pliny ; and the ingenuity of mankind in our own xra has proved that it may still be made of the same materials. Accordingly, Isidorus, who lived in the 7th century, ob serves, that from asbestos, c4 something mechanical has been framed by human art." A chemist of the 9th century de scribes the process of making it, which proves to be very near the truth ; Marco Polo, Simon Alajolus, and a few others, testify its existence subsequent to the darker ages ; after which, Kircher, Ray, Ciampini, and many more, directed their attention towards its substance and manufac ture. The words of Pliny, concerning the use of incom bustible cloth in preserving the remains of princes, are thought by some commentators not to apply to the Roman sovereigns, but to those of the east ; and it is said that a Tartar prince sent a piece of it to Alexander, one of the popes. Marco Polo, who travelled into Tartary in the
13th century, speaks of a province called Chinchinthalas, in which a substance is found whereof incombustible cloth is made. He learned from cc Curfican, a very intelligent Turk, that the process consists in drying it in the sun, and beating it in a mortar, after which it is washed and wove like wool. It is to be put during an hour into the fire, when it comes out whiter than snow; and no other wash ing is required, if dirty, than passing it through the flames." Ccelius Rhodiginus only makes an allusion to incombusti ble cloth, but Simon Majolus saw an incombustible cloak of asbestos exposed to the fire at Louvain ; and Agricola ob serves, that at Verelung in Saxony there was another of the same substance. Kircher tells us, that in his museum he had a whole cabinet full of asbestine articles ; that he had got a napkin of it from Cardinal Lugo, which after being thrown into the fire came out quite clean. He also had writing paper of the same substance, from which the let ters were entirely obliterated on being committed to the flames, as if washed out, and the paper was withdrawn en tire and clearer than before. Thus, he observes, corre spondence could constantly be carried on by means of a single sheet. In addition to these instances may be men tioned the information of Mr. Ray, to whom the Prince Palatine sheaved an incombustible purse at Heidelberg, which received no injury after being thoroughly ignited in a pan of charcoal. A long rope, likewise, which had been steeped in oil, and then put into the fire, proved incombus tible. In the year 1702, a funeral urn was found contain ing a quantity of bones and ashes, wrapped in a piece of incombustible cloth no less than eight feet long, and five in breadth, Being presented to Pope Clement XI. he or dered it to be deposited in the Vatican, where it yet re mains, and affords incontestible evidence of the truth of Pliny's narration. Some of the monkish writers also in form us, that a certain St. George being sentenced to be burnt alive, he was enveloped in asbestine cloth, that they might not ascribe his preservation from fire to a miracle.