72 The Shipworm. [Sess. 



1148 acres of square timber, that were allowed to lie in the 

 water till the Teredo had ruined them. Puget Sound is a 

 collection of inlets forming a harbour of about 15 square 

 miles to the south-east of Vancouver Island. It is particu- 

 larly infested with Teredos, and at Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria, 

 and other points on its shores, clocks have been cut down in a 

 year's time, causing heavy damage, expense, and loss of life ; 

 and although somewhat extreme, the opinion is held there 

 that after six months a pile is unsafe. A special instance, 

 however, of the rapidity with which mischief is clone has been 

 cited from Seattle, where a pile taken from a raft waiting to 

 be used in the building of a wharf was found useless. It had 

 been in the water only thirty days, and a section of it, about 

 a foot across, contained 212 holes by actual count. When 

 this log was placed on the beach, it is said that on putting the 

 ear near it the sound was like that of a saw-mill in actual 

 operation. In England, Southampton Water is much infested 

 by them ; and in our own country two of the worst parts are 

 Lerwick and Castlebay in the Hebrides. 



Long experience has confirmed the fact that two of the 

 best known and most extensively imported timbers for ship- 

 building and marine engineering purposes are greenheart and 

 teak. These do not, however, thoroughly or altogether with- 

 stand the attacks of the Teredo, but they appear to be among 

 those least subject to them. This may be clue partly to their 

 close-grained hard nature, and partly to the oil with which 

 both woods are permeated. Greenheart, so called from its 

 colour when sawn up, is the timber of the Bebeeru, a tree 

 belonging to the natural order Lauraceae, a native of Guiana. 

 It has a clear stem, attaining a height of 40 to 50 feet, with 

 a diameter of between 2 and 3 feet, and is imported in logs 

 of from 12 to 16 inches square, and from 20 to 40 feet in 

 length. It has a medicinal bark, yielding the sulphate of 

 bebeerine, not much used now, however. By subjecting green- 

 heart wood to a process identical with that used for the extrac- 

 tion of the sulphate of bebeerine from the bark, a product is 

 obtained of an intensely bitter taste, not differing perceptibly 

 from the sulphate itself. This may account for wounds pro- 

 duced by splinters of greenheart not readily healing. 



Teak is one of the most valuable of the timbers produced 



