1890s with the adoption of machine technologies and expanded production. For a long time, the world's largest asbestos mine was the Jeffrey mine in the town of Asbestos, Quebec. Asbestos production began in the Urals of the Russian Empire in the 1880s, and the Alpine regions of Northern Italy with the formation in Turin of the Italo-English Pure Asbestos Company in 1876, although this was soon swamped by the greater production levels from the Canadian mines. Mining also took off in South Africa from 1893 under the aegis of the British businessman Francis Oates, the director of the De Beers company. It was in South Africa that the production of amosite began in 1910. The U.S. asbestos industry had an early start in 1858 when fibrous anthophyllite was mined for use as asbestos insulation by the Johns Company, a predecessor to the current Johns Manville, at a quarry at Ward's Hill on Staten Island, New York. US production began in earnest in 1899 with the discovery of large deposits in Belvidere Mountain. The use of asbestos became increasingly widespread toward the end of the 19th century when its diverse applications included fire-retardant coatings, concrete, bricks, pipes and fireplace cement, heat-, fire-, and acid-resistant gaskets, pipe insulation, ceiling insulation, fireproof drywall, flooring, roofing, lawn furniture, and drywall joint compound. In 2011, it was reported that over 50% of UK houses still contained asbestos, despite a ban on asbestos products some years earlier. In Japan, particularly after World War II, asbestos was used in the manufacture of ammonium sulfate for purposes of rice production, sprayed upon the ceilings, iron skeletons, and walls of railroad cars and buildings (during the 1960s), and used for energy efficiency reasons as well. Production of asbestos in Japan peaked in 1974 and went through ups and downs until about 1990 when production began to drop dramatically. Discovery of toxicity In 1899, H. Montague Murray noted the negative health effects of asbestos. The first documented death related to asbestos was in 1906. In the early 1900s, researchers began to notice a large number of early deaths and lung problems in asbestos-mining towns. The first such study was conducted by Murray at the Charing Cross Hospital, London, in 1900, in which a postmortem investigation discovered asbestos traces in the lungs of a young man who had died from pulmonary fibrosis after having worked for 14 years in an asbestos