centage paid insufficient. The last vessel, the 'Montague', built with this description of timber was 

 launched in 1779 and in 1819 promised to become a centenarian, as the 'Royal William' had nearly done. 

 These are facts, and speak for themselves ; surely it was false economy not to raise the indemnity for loss of 

 bark to its full extent ; for sliips have rotted unfinished since then. 



The decay of wood from being placed in wet earth, or other similar causes, must not be confounded 

 with the havoc made by MeruUus lachrymans. 



In the section of a piece of wood attacked by Dry-rot, a microscope reveals minute wliite threads 

 spreading and ramifjang throughout its substance ; these interlace and become matted together, into a white 

 cottony texture, resembling lint, which effuses itseK over the surface of the timber ; then in the centre of 

 each considerable mass, a gelatinous substance forms ^ which becomes gradually of a yellow tawny hue, 

 and a wrinkled sinuated porous consistence, shedding a red powder (the spores) upon a white down ; tliis 

 is the re-supinate pUeus, the hjTnenium being upwards, of Menilius lackrymans in its perfect and matured 

 state. Long before it attains to this, the whole interior of the wood on which it is situated has perished, 

 the sap vessels being gradually filled by the cottony filaments of the Pungus ; no sooner do these appear 

 externally, than examination proves that the apparently solid beam may be crmnbled to dust between the 

 fingers ^ ; tenacity and weight are annihilated ; cure, not only there is none, but there never could have 

 been, as the e\Tl is not known till it is final. 



And how came Dry-rot there ? It was in the sap when the tree was felled. It found in that sap, 

 perhaps the fermenting principle that called it into life, certainly the nutriment propitious to its grofli;h, and 

 so it fed and flourished till it usurped the very place of the wood which fostered it. 



But how came the Meruliim lachrymans to be latent in the sap ? This subject is as yet dimly under- 

 stood ; modern microscopes aiding that patient research wliich seeks to arrive at truth by inductive means, 

 instead of theorizing on defective data, may be expected to prove, what at present is only probable ^ 



This then is probable. In ancient forests, where a succession of trees flourished and deca3'ed, millions 

 of the spores of Funguses must have been scattered, and carried to the earth by rains. These impalpable 

 dnst-like bodies would be absorbed along with the moisture by the roots of the trees, and carried into the 

 sap- vessels, being so minute as to circidate easily tlirough them. Here then are the elements of parasitic 

 life, whenever fitting opportunity occurs. * This opportunity is afforded, when the energies of the tree are 

 weakened by age, and the circulation languishes ; to an analogous state a vigorous tree is reduced by felling. 



Fistulina kejiatica and various species of Polyjiorus, divert the feeble current of life in the dying trunk, 

 to their own active growth, and if, in the sap of the cut timber, spores of Menilius lacliryynans should be 

 latent, it will evolve that Fungus, being no longer necessary to the tree itself. 



So far the analog}' between the felled and the decaying trunk, is, that both submit to a parasitic growth 

 at their expence ; but it is probable that beyond tins passive mode of fostering such growth, the sap of the 



' In this state it sometimes distils drops of water, whence its name — lachrymans. 



2 " Architects also know that beams are sometimes taken from old houses so much decayed in the middle that 

 they could tlu-ust their arms into thera from either of the ends, whUe at the same time the beams have been appa- 

 rently sound on all their sides." — Bowden. p. 17. 



* " The perfect plant may be produced from the seed, careied up into the longitudinal tubes of a growing tree, 

 by the rising of the sap ! though it woidd seem that the process of vegetation in the parasite thus lodged, will not 

 commence, so long as the vital principle of the sap in the tree remains in activity. Indeed it is pretty evident, 

 from numerous observations, that the process of fermentation is necessaiy to the growth of all Fungi." — Siippl. to 

 Enei/. Brit. Also vide Badham on ' The Esculent Funguses of England ', and a paper by Mr. Berkeley, on Bunt, 

 Journal, Sort. Society, March, 1847. 



■• Persoon says that we may suppose the reproductive bodies of Funguses mnate in different plants, according 

 to their nature, and waiting tiU a malady, or even the desti'uction of the vegetable (or tree) favours their develop- 

 ment. He elucidates this by the presence of Entozoa in sickly animals. 



