What wire is this?

[chevymadness]

When I was replacing the positive battery cable to the starter I saw a long dangling hose like wire and it seemed to be extremely fried from touching hot pipe.The wire encased in a plastic hose leads in a hole right in front of passenger area of course a couple of wires lead to the carburetor etc but the long wire leads way down near starter in its bottom end.The end of the wire has a fuse box clamp thing..