CONTINENTAL NOTES FRANCE. 59 



to look out for them. When, as usually happens, a property 

 for sale has a house attached, the latter, and a certain amount 

 of ground round it, could be sold off again, the remainder being 

 retained as a forest block. 



2. In view of the threatened shortage of timber there is every 

 reason for rendering utilisable every species that can possibly be 

 pressed into service. The world contains enormous quantities 

 of timbers of inferior quality — so far as durability is concerned 

 — but which, nevertheless, have other attributes required in 

 wood (as sufficient strength, or hardness, for example). Thus 

 the Himalayas contain many firs and pines which, left to them- 

 selves, would quickly succumb to insects or fungi if used in the 

 plains. Yet the railway companies of India, who very much 

 prefer wood to iron for railway sleepers, do not appear to be 

 able to make up their minds to set up antiseptic plant, and use 

 these cheap woods after treatment. When they use wood they 

 insist on having deodar, or Sal {Shorea) (for which the merchants 

 can usually find a better market in house building), or the 

 Australian Jarrah (at 6s. to 7s. each sleeper). 



The Forest School of Nancy is now engaged on experiments 

 with antiseptics under the direction of Professor E. Henry. ^ His 

 great aim is to find a cheap antiseptic. He has found that 

 Carbolineum avenarius, heated to 140° to 175° F. (to melt the 

 thick liquid), can sink thoroughly into a sleeper of oak or beech, 

 in ten minutes, and apparently a longer immersion does not 

 increase the absorption. The oak will absorb i"5 per cent, of the 

 weight of the wood, and the beech as much as 4-5 per cent. 

 This liquid costs 40 centimes the kilogramme (i kilo. = 2-2 lbs.), 

 and the total cost of treating a sleeper is only about 30 centimes. 

 It has been found that an untreated oak sleeper will last nine 

 years, while creosoted it will last thirteen or fourteen years. 

 The full life of a sleeper treated with Carbolineum is not yet 

 known, but that the preservative is efficacious we shall see 

 below. Judging from a practical example, the cost of creosoting 

 is to that of treatment with Carbolineum as 49 to 21. The 

 process is simplicity itself, and a single workman can turn out 

 450 sleepers, soaked for 30 minutes, in a day; but since 10 

 minutes is apparently equally effective, the one workman should 

 be able to turn out a great many more, though not, we think, as 

 M. Henry calculates optimistically, three times as many. The 



^ Cf. Trans. Royal Scot. Arbortculiural Soc, xxi. p. 201. 



