Note 147 — Chapter IV

There is one at the Barberini Palace at Rome. A sheet, woven of asbestos, found in a tomb outside the Porta Maggiore, is described by Sir J. E. Smith in his “Tour on the Continent” (vol. ii. p. 201) as being coarsely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk. “We set fire to it, and the same part being repeatedly burnt, was not at all injured.”