314 DECAY OF WOODY FIBRE. 



burns without flame ; whence no other conclusion 

 can be drawn, than that the hydrogen, which an- 

 alysis shows to be present, is not contained in it 

 in the same form as in wood. 



Decayed oak contains more carbon than fresh 

 wood, but its hydrogen and oxygen are in the same 

 proportion. 



We would naturally expect that the flame given 

 out by decayed wood should be more brilliant, in 

 proportion to the increase of its carbon, but we 

 find, on the contrary, that it burns like tinder, ex- 

 actly as if no hydrogen were present. For the 

 purposes of fuel, decayed or diseased wood is of 

 little value, for it does not possess the property of 

 burning with flame, a property upon which the ad- 

 vantages of common wood depend. The hydro- 

 gen of decayed wood must consequently be sup- 

 posed to be in the state of water ; for had it any 

 other form, the characters we have described would 

 not be possessed by the decayed wood. 



If we suppose decay to proceed in a liquid, which 

 contains both carbon and hydrogen, then a com- 

 pound containing still more carbon must be formed, 

 in a manner similar to the production of the crys- 

 talline colourless napthalin from a gaseous com- 

 pound of carbon and ^hydrogen. And if the com- 

 pound thus formed were itself to undergo further 

 decay, the final result must be the separation of 

 carbon in a crystalline form. 



Science can point to no process capable of ac- 



