From union logos, village crest of arms to company trademarks the salamander has been linked to the fire resistant aspect of asbestos. This guide explains the story behind the salamander and asbestos.

Marco Polo

In his thirteenth century travels, Marco Polo was traversing a part of Siberia then know as the Great Empire of Tartary here he was shown some cloth that would not burn, he was told by Tartar hosts that it was made of salamander’s wool - the little animal popularly supposed to be immune to fire. Too wily to be taken in by a story like that, Polo examined the material carefully and after making inquires, learned that there was a mineral in the mountains of that district that contains threads of a fire-resisting material.

From Keasbey & Mattison Advertising

From Marco Polo and the Province of Ghinghin Talas: And know too that in this same mountain is found a good vein from which the cloth which we call salamander, which cannot be burnt if it is thrown into the fire, is made, it is of the best that is found in the world. And you may know in thruth that salamander which I speak is not a beast nor a serpent, for it is not true that those cloths are of the hair of an animal which lives in fire, as one says in our country, but is such a things as I shall say below; it is a vein of earth.

However Marco Polo did not manage to dispell the belief that asbestos was from the salamander and in 1676, at a meeting of the Royal Society of London, a Chinese merchant exhibited a handkerchief of ’salamander’s wool’ or ‘linum asbesti’.

Union Logo

The first union of insulation workers in the United States was formed in New York City in 1884 under a charter issued by the Knights of Labor predecessor of the American Federation of Labor, as ‘The Salamander Association of Boiler and Pipe Felters.’ In 1910, the present union insulation workers in this country was charted by the A. F. of L., as the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, with the amalgamation of the Salamander’s Association of New York and other independent locals through the country. The members of this union are insulation workers, primarily employed in the building trades doing construction insulation work but also employed as insulation workers in shipyard and powerhouse construction and repair.

Trademarks and Others

The crest for the village of Asbestos, Quebec or La Ville D’ Asbestos.

Bestobell Limited also know as Bell’s Asbestos and Engineering Supplies Limited. A manufacturer of asbestos products.

The United Asbestos Company Limited of London.

The Salamander

Widely distributed through Southern, Western and Central Europe. Absent from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia, the coastal region of Northern and Baltic Sea, and east of the Carpathians. Image and text from the website whose-tadpole.de by Otto und Friedo Berninghausen.

Sources

Bowles, Oliver, The Silk of the Mineral Kingdom, The Ruberoid Co., 1946, Pg. 8

Fabien S.C., Frere, Asbestos: Son Site, Son Industrie and Ses Activities, Ottawa Sociaete Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Asbestos, 1964.

Mendels, M. M., The Asbestos Industry of Canada, McGill University Economic Studies - National Problems of Canada, No. 14, Packett-Times Press, Ltd., Orillia, Canada, 1930.

Selikoff, et. al., Asbestosis Among Insulation Workers, Annals New York Academy of Sciences, Pgs. 140-1.

Sinclair, W. E., Asbestos, Its Origin, Production and Utilization, Mining Publications, Ltd., London, 1955, Pgs. 1-2.

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