Robert A. Clifton, Asbestos: A Chapter from Mineral Facts and Problems, U.S. Bureau of Mines (1975)

A 15-page chapter on asbestos by Robert A. Clifton, a physical scientist in the U.S. Bureau of Mines' Division of Nonmetallic Minerals, preprinted from Bulletin 667, "Mineral Facts and Problems," 1975 edition. It surveys the world asbestos industry: where the fiber is mined (Canada supplied about 95 percent of U.S. imports and South Africa nearly all of its crocidolite and amosite), how it is used, mostly in construction products, and the outlook for supply and demand. It notes that "the health hazards associated with asbestos are undergoing close scrutiny" and that efforts to regulate them were cited "as a reason for the possible loss of a viable asbestos production industry in the United States."

What it shows

The chapter is the federal government's standard overview of the asbestos trade in the mid-1970s, with production, consumption and price tables, and its data run through 1973 and 1974. Under "Remaining Problems" it says health hazards "are present in the whole sequence of mining, processing, and utilizing asbestos." This copy carries a stamp of the Johns-Manville Research and Development Information Center, showing it came from J-M's own library.