1885.] GAILLOTS PATENT AUTOMATIC TORCHES. 157 



In the cylinder used, the logs float on creosote which is heated as 

 in a still. The water drawn from the wood is removed as vapour 

 through a worm. 



Examples of sleepers showing the advantages of the new process, 

 as well as a telegraph pole treated by it, are exhibited at the 

 Inventories. In the specimens Nos. 10 to 3G inclusive, which 

 illustrate the comparative endurance of creosoted and uncreosoted 

 timber, our readers may find an interesting study. Fences 

 thoroughly good after thirty years' use, posts perfectly good though 

 erected in 1855, beech sleepers from a parcel of 6890 creosoted in 

 1865-G6 for the "West of France Eailway, 6545 of which were 

 perfectly sound after nineteen to twenty years' wear, are amongst the 

 items. 



That beech is so employed on the Continent, the West of France 

 Eailway Company having used three millions and a half of these 

 sleepers with like success since 1864, cannot but be interesting for 

 landed proprietors in many quarters looking for a market for this wood. 

 Again, it may be gathered from the discussion before the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers, that previous preparation of the wood, rather 

 than a high percentage of carbolic acid in the oil used, is of most 

 importance in creosoting hop-poles, or palings for fences, preferably 

 by this process. 



GAILLOT'S PATENT AUTOMATIC TORCHES. 



THE ravages caused by tlie vine disease, and the destruction of 

 crops by other insect pests in France, render their extirpation 

 a matter of national importance. And as British foresters have also 

 abundant reasons for sympathy with their confreres across the 

 narrow strip of blue, an effective discovery bearing on this common 

 calamity, though in different phases of manifestation, must have an 

 equal interest to them. 



The two great insecticides, apart from human destroyers, still are 

 fire and poison. The first, dangerous to manipulate and control, 

 often destroying not only the insect-infested tree, but valuable old 

 timber surrounding it, is generally preferred to the use of chemical 

 solutions which the insect may avoid, and which sometimes occasion 

 the sacrifice of inoffensive lives. M. Gaillot, mechanical engineer at 

 Beaune (Cote d'Or), appears, from the attestations of nearly two 

 hundred medals and diplomas awarded at Phylloxera conferences and 

 the like, to have invented an instrument satisfactory to the French 

 vine-growers. Its purport is destruction not only to the thoroughly- 

 matured insects, but even to their winter eggs, as well as other eggs. 



