CHAP, iv SYLVA 85 



7. I must not omit to take notice of the coating 

 of timber in work, us'd by the Hollanders for the 

 preservation of their gates, port-cullis's, draw-bridges, 

 sluces, and other huge beams and contignations of 

 timber expos'd to the sun, and perpetual injuries of 

 the weather, by a certain mixture of pitch and tar, 

 upon which they strew small pieces of cockle, and 

 other shells, beaten almost to powder, and mingled 

 with sea-sand, or the scales of iron, beaten small and 

 sifted, which incrusts, and arms it after an incredible 

 manner against all these assaults and foreign invaders : 

 But if this should be deem'd more obnoxious to firing, 

 I have heard that a wash made of allum has wonder- 

 fully protected it against the assaults even of that 

 devouring element, and that so a wooden tower or 

 fort at the Piraeum an Athenian port, was defended 

 by Archelaus a commander of Mithridates, from the 

 great Sylla : But you have several compositions for 

 this purpose in that incomparable treatise of naval 

 architecture, written in the Low-Dutch, by N. 

 Witsen, chap. 6. part. i. the book is a folio, and he 

 that should well translate it into our language (which 

 I much wonder has not yet been done) would deserve 

 well of the publick. 



8. Timber that you have occasion to lay in mortar, 

 or which is in any part contiguous to lime, as doors, 

 window-cases, groundsils, and the extremities of 

 beams, Gfc. have sometimes been capp'd with molten 

 pitch, as a marvelous preserver of it from the burn- 

 ing and destructive effects of the lime ; but it has 

 since been found rather to heat and decay them, by 

 hindring the transudation which those parts require ; 

 better supply'd with loam or strowings of brick-dust, 

 or pieces of boards ; some leave a small hole for the 



