On the Dry-Rof. 435 



eleven pounds for cooking. This is nearly the same relative 

 quantity as those at Brest. 



RocHEFORT. — The experiments here have not heen made with 

 tlie same regularity; because the fifteen persons fixed npon had 

 all agreed among themselves to say that they were very ill. The 

 two principal ones complained of violent colics and diarrhoeas; 

 but the plot was discovered, and upon being put upon the sick 

 list {ii la diete) they were laughed at by their companions. No 

 one of them was really indisposed ; on the contrary, many 

 thought they experienced some good effect in regard to some 

 infirmities under which they had long laboured. 



The above are not, however, the only experiments which have 

 been made upon this beverage. Several persons wishing to as- 

 certain its effects by individual experience, have voluntarily con- 

 fined themselves to its use ; and the members cf the Commission 

 of Inquiry are almost in the daily practice of taking it. The 

 captain of the Duclat has taken it every day at his meals for 

 twenty days, and has experienced not the smallest inconvenience 

 from its use. MM. Vasse and Chatelain, apothecaries to the 

 marine at Brest, have occasionally kept the water in their mouths 

 for four hours by constantly renewing it, and have not found 

 either the sharp taste, or other caustic qualities, which have been 

 said to be peculiar to it : and here it may be proper to state, 

 thai the mouths of all the individuals who had taken the water 

 for a length of time were examined, without the detection of 

 any thing in them either of a swollen or inflammatory appear- 

 ance. 



Such are the 1-eports of commissioners employed to investi- 

 gate the effects of distilled sea-water ; who, although separated 

 at a great distance from each other, and having no communica- 

 tion, all agree in the inference, that it may be employed with- 

 out any injury to the health, both as a beverage and in cookery, 

 for the space of at least a month ; and the fair presumption is, 

 that it maybe so employed for a much longer time ; and that in 

 consequence it must be considered as a very happy resource in 

 long voyages, especially in voyages of discovery. 



LXXV. On the Dnj-Rot. By Mr. Gavin Inglis. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 

 ^ April 29, 181S. 



Sir, — lliVERY lover of his country must learn with peculiar 

 anxiety and regret the alarming ravages committed by the dry-rot 

 iij that hitherto invulnerable bulwark of our happy nation " the 

 wooUeu walls of Old England." The state of the Kdcn sloop of 

 E c 2 war. 



