74 The Shipivorm. [Sess. 



success in Sweden. Breaming or scorching timber, and satu- 

 rating it while hot with a mixture of whale-oil and thin coal- 

 tar, also forms a temporary protection. In many instances 

 creasoted timber has been used with great success, although 

 not a certain safeguard, as in 1863 a large number of creasoted 

 harbour -piles at Christiania were entirely destroyed. The 

 cleaving of fir piles with thin boards was resorted to some 

 years ago at Lerwick harbour, and this device was found 

 fairly successful. Impregnation of timber with water-glass 

 has been tried in the Brooklyn navy yard with satisfactory 

 results, but little further has been heard of the process. 

 Casing piles with wooden boxes, the space between being 

 filled up with cement, has been found successful, but of course 

 the boxes themselves are soon riddled. 



It is known that so long ago as the reign of Trajan, who 

 became Emperor in 98 A.D., sheathing of lead, fastened with 

 copper nails, had been used as a protection for galleys from 

 the devastating animals of the Mediterranean. 



As it contains the latest suggestion for prevention, and 

 as showing to what an extent this pest must enter into 

 the business calculations of some communities, the fol- 

 lowing extract from the ' Portland Oregonian ' may be of 

 interest : — 



" In the office of the Oregon Improvement Company are a number of cans 

 of some poisonous compound intended to prevent the terror of Puget 

 Sound, the Teredo, from destroying piles or other timbers placed in the 

 water. The stuff is to be sent over to the Sound to he tested. A number 

 of things have been tried, such as creasote, asbestos, coal-tar, castor-oil, 

 strychnine, &c, but the only sure method for preventing the Teredo from 

 eating up piles is to make them of iron. Covering wooden piles with 

 copper will protect them as long as there is no place in the joints of the 

 copper where a Teredo can poke his nose through ; but if once the copper 

 gets torn, it is good-bye, John, to the pile. So far, the poisonous compounds 

 used seem to have pleased the Teredo much, seeming to act as a condiment 

 on what must be rather a monotonous bill of fare, and assisting in its 

 digestion. The man who finds out the poison which will act as an anti- 

 dote will have a good thing. It may he that if the piles were washed with 

 whale-oil soap every day, it might keep away the Teredo ; or if they were 

 greased with tallow, perhaps the long, slimy, wriggling pest might not 

 he able to get its teeth into the pile, as they would slip off. The people 

 on the Sound can rejoice that the Teredo does not go ashore and hunt 

 for tall timher, as, if it did, the lumber output of that section would 

 soon be nil. It might be that if the saw-mills on the Sound would throw 



