About Chemistry of Paling Rails. 



By ANDREW TAYLOR, F.C.S.E. 



The forester, no less than the chemist, is constantly watching expe- 

 riments. The student in the house makes oxygen by fusing together 

 chlorate of potash and bi-oxide of manganese. The complaints of 

 your correspondents about the decay of paling rails, stobs, &c., is 

 really the recording of the fact that a slow burning is going on, 

 caused by the oxygen of the atmosphere uniting partly with the 

 hydrogen of the woody tissues to form water, or with the carbon of 

 the same organisms to form carbonic acid. The full effect of this 

 slow burning is seen in the formation of the humus of the soil, but 

 decaying wood is as certainly caused by this natural process. The 

 problem is, then, how to prevent the oxygen of the atmosphere gaining 

 access to the lignary tissues. 



Now observation and theory teach us so far ; and it should be the 

 aim of practice to find how best to give practical effect to such 

 teachings. 



Wood altogether covered from the action of the atmosphere is prac- 

 tically perpetual. M. Peligot examined a portion of resinous wood 

 which formed the quay of Carthage, and which was built about the 

 year 8 GO before Christ. In colour, texture, and fibre it was like 

 ordinary wood cut just now. It had been, however, subjected to the 

 process of fossilization by infiltration. It contained 80 per cent, of 

 mineral matters, notably carbonate of lime to the extent of 47 per 

 cent., and 8 to 10 per cent, more carbon than ordinary wood. It was 

 thus simultaneously changing into a limestone and a coal. When 

 wood is, however, immersed in stagnant water, decomposition is 

 much more rapid. In sixty-five years the fibres have become disin- 

 tegrated, and the mass gradually changing into a substance like peat. 

 This has doubtless arisen from the gases held in solution by such 

 marshy waters. 



It is quite open, then, to the forester to fossilize his paling stobs, 

 either by placing them in natural waters containing much carbonate 

 of lime, as those of Lough Neagh, or the encrusting springs of Mat- 

 lock, or by injecting into the pores such chemical solutions as sulphate 

 of copper, &c., as is done in France. But these do not seem to be 

 appropriate for the minor details of rural economy. Let me only say 



