as used in example 1 showed a scatter of 6 7 in order to evaluate suitability of the obtained alumina fiber sheet for use as a holder for exhaust gas cleaning systems five 50 mm u00d7 50 mm square test pieces were collected from the sheet by cutting it in the width direction at equal intervals and each test piece was subjected to 5 time repetition of a compression release operation which comprised compressing the test piece to a thickness of 4 mm at room temperature by a compression tester measuring the surface pressure and then releasing the compression each test piece was also subjected to 5 time repetition of a compression release operation which comprised compressing the test piece to a thickness of 3 mm measuring the surface pressure and releasing the compression the results of the above evaluation tests are shown in table 1 a thin lamina sheet obtained in the same way as in comparative example 1 was wound around a round rotator to produce a 1 050 mm wide laminated sheet of alumina fiber precursor comprising 30 layers of the said lamina sheet and this laminated sheet was needled and calcined as in example 1 to obtain an alumina fiber sheet having a thickness of about 10 mm and a width of about 740 mm the scatter of this alumina fiber sheet as determined in the same way as described above was 16 8 suitability of the obtained alumina fiber sheet for use as a holder for exhaust gas cleaning systems was evaluated in the same way as in example 2 the results are shown in table 1 comparing example 2 and comparative example 2 both are.