General JVotices. 425 



protectors for plants, &c. We would recommend all bast mats to be 

 immersed in Kyan's compositionj all netting and canvass made of hemp 

 or flax; and all garden lines, sash-lines, packthread for tying plants, 

 lists for nailing wall-trees, &.c. It is only necessary to send the articles 

 which are to be Kyanised to the nearest Kyan's tank, where the process 

 will be effected in forty or fifty hours, at a mere trifle of expense. 

 These tanks are now established in various towns, and several gentle- 

 men have private tanks for their own use. If the benefits to be derived 

 from this composition come at all near to what is held out by the pa- 

 tentee, by Dr. Birkbeck, and by Dr. Dickson, in his late lectures on the 

 Botany of Architecture, before the Institute of British Architects, wood 

 tanneries will soon be as common as tanneries for leather. There is a 

 tank at Blackwall, where any gardener within ten miles of London 

 may (with his master's permission) try some wood, cut into the form 

 of tallies for pots, and also for plants in the open air, and other speci- 

 mens of the articles mentioned above; and we should like much if they 

 would do so, and, in a year or two, let us know the result. We intend 

 ourselves to have some experiments tried; an account of all which, 

 with a particular account of the process, we shall give in the Arbore- 

 tum Britannicum. In the mean time we should be glad to hear the ex- 

 perience of different persons on the subject, from different parts of the 

 country. (Gard. Mag.) 



[It is stated, in the Gardener's Magazine for July, that the Messrs. 

 Loddiges Kyanise all the wood from which they make their labels, 

 stakes for plants, &c. The wood so prepai'ed lasts for an interminable 

 length of time, and saves the necessity of renewing labels, &c. every 

 year, which decay from being put into the soil. With the hope that the 

 same method may be adopted here, we have quoted from the Architec- 

 tural Magazine referred to above, Mr. Kyan's process, the expense at- 

 tending which is very slight. — Cond.] "Mr. Kyan, who had been for 

 a series of years (since 1812,) engaged in trying a variety of experi- 

 ments on the preservation of timber, was led to the present experiment 

 by having, as he conceived, at length ascertained that albumen was the 

 primary cause of putrefactive fermentation, and subsequently of the 

 decomposition of vegetable matter. Aware of the established affinity 

 of corrosive sublimate for this material, he applied that substance to so- 

 lutions of vegetable matter, both acetous and saccharine, on which he 

 was then operating, and in which albumen was a constituent, with a 

 view to preserve them in a quiescent and incoiTuptible state, and ob- 

 taining a confirmation of his opinions by the fact that, during a period 

 of three years, the acetous solution openly exposed to atm.ospheric air 

 had not become putrid, nor had the saccharine decoction yielded to the 

 vinous or acetous stages of fermentation, but were in a high state of 

 preservation; he concluded that corrosive sublimate, by combination 

 with albumen, was a protection against the natural changes of vegeta- 

 ble matter." 



" The mode in which the application of the solution takes place, is 

 in a tank similar to the model on the table. They are constructed of 

 different dimensions, from twenty to eighty feet in length, six to ten in 

 breadth, and three to eight in depth. The timber to be prepared is 

 placed in the tank, and secured by a cross beam, to prevent its rising to 

 the surface. The wood being thus secured, the solution is then ad- 

 mitted from the cistern above, and for a time all I'emains perfectly still. 

 In the course of ten or twelve hours the water is thrown into great agi- 

 tation by the effervescence occasioned by the expulsion of the air fixed 

 in the wood, by the force with which the fluid is drawn in by chemical 

 affinity, and by the escape of that portion of the chlorine or muriatic 

 acid gas which is disengaged during the process. In the course of 



VOL. III. NO. XI. 54 



