gj^ crVRE Ot" THE DRY ROT. 



mittee of the Society, and they were all found entirely free from 

 any appearance of the Rot, To inveftigate the matter more 

 fully, a further inquiry has been made in June, 1803, and an 

 anfwer received, that there has been yet no appearance of the 

 Dry Rot there; the Society, therefore, think it may be of con- 

 fequence to notice the ta6l, and to infert, in the prefent Volume, 

 fome other papers with which they have been favoured upon 

 the fubjedl. They contain many hints deferving public atten- 

 tion, and which will doubtlefs tend to check the progrefs of 

 this evil. 



Letter from Ben/. Johnson, Efq. on the fame SuhjtS^, 



To CHARLES TAYLOR, Efq. 

 SIR, 

 Account of 4 SOME time between 1771 and 1773, I went, at the requeft 



pew very much of ^ friend, to the Chapel at the Lock-Hofpital, through cu- 

 dry rot. ^ ^ riofity, to examine a pew there, that had frequently been re-. 



paired for damages by the dry rot. 

 It is a plant. After a clofe jnveftigation, we found that it was the operation 



of a plant, whofe leaf refembled that of the vine. Wherever 

 it had touched, the effefl of its poifonous quality got through 

 the wood to the paint, which I have feen a mere fkin. I pro- 

 Deftroyedbyco- pofed to cover the floor with bricks, laid in mortar, which was 

 vering the accordingly done. I called twice lince, the laft time about 

 groun . feven years ago ; and have reafon to think that it had never ap- 



peared again. 

 DryrotatMark- The next opportunity of examining it carefully wat at Mark- 

 ^*^'* Hall, in Effex, the feat of Mr. Montague Burgoyne. Jn a 



parlour there were three pillars of about ten inches in 

 diameter, the out wood of which was between two and three 

 inches thick. Two of them were eaten through in lefs than 

 feven years, from the bafes, about two feet upward, within the 

 hollow, and were as rotten as if it had been the effe6l of a 

 The plant found, hundred years {landing. Mr. Montague Burgoyne's gardener 

 was a botanift : we found the plant where I directed him to 

 fearch for it ; and he faid it was the Boletus Lachrynians. * 



At 



* Some authors call it a parafitical plant j and it is fometimes to 

 be found with the willow and fallow tribe, but this is not to the 



pu rpofe« , 



