1893: Asbestos Arising from the Death of Animals

Wow! The 1891-3 Journal of the General Mining Association of the Province of Quebec, published by the Offices of the Association based in Ottawa, Ontario, claims that their variety of serpentine asbestos may have originated from dead animals. In particular:

“The origin of those particular serpentine layers, is an unsolved problem yet. But when we take into consideration the discovery of Eozoom Canadense by Dawson, the careful observations by Gumbel, Hochstetter and Credner, about pre-existence of organic life in the rudimentary crystalline limestone, we have some reason to suppose that these peculiar forms are built up by organic forms — probably by foraminiferes — and that after the death of the animals the cells have been precipitated by silicates of magnesia out of the water of the ocean. Probably the fissures have been caused by shrinking of the serpentine, and then filled with asbestiform matter by the activity of water. But this theory must be proved yet by microscopical investigations and it is not the purpose of this paper to enter into discussion about this subject.”

In particular, on page 121 of https://theasbestosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/1893-Quebec-Mining-publicaation.pdf:

This journal has a lot of other information from that time frame that is interesting, but this supposition was new to me.

So, can we claim that asbestos both causes death and arises from death? That is, at least as far as 1893 science can take us?

Let me know your thoughts either by leaving a comment or emailing me at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com. Thanks. Marty