ITS DURABILITY. 



\Vm. K. Arthur, formerly Sup't Illinois Central Railroad, 

 informed me that he had visited with a friend the old home- 

 stead, and took up a catalpa gate-post his friend had assisted 

 his father to set forty-six years before. They found it as sound 

 as the day it was set. no signs of decay whatever. Judge 

 rpshcr. formerly of Indiana, informed me that old citizens of 

 Vineeimes had stated to him that the old stockade, built by 

 the first French settlers of that place, was largely from catalpa 

 trees, which grow native in the forests there, and that when 

 removed from the ground nearly one hundred years after they 

 had been set, were perfectly sound, and gave no indications of 

 decay. (.'. M. Allen, of Vincennes, writes: "During the last 

 thirty years I have seen much of catalpa, in fence-posts and 

 timber of buildings in contact with the ground, and esteem it 

 the most durable of all timber; in fact it may be regarded as 

 imperishable under or lying on the ground." Another gen- 

 tleman of the same place says he has fence-posts of twenty- 

 two years standing, as firm and sound, apparently, as the day 

 they were put in the ground. Catalpa posts set by General 

 Harrison about the Governor's house, in 1808, Mr. Pidgeon 

 says, were taken up a few years ago, and being sound were re- 

 set in another place, The'early settlers of Knox County, Ind., 

 found a catalpa log that had fallen across a stream, and used 

 us a. foot-bridge until it was flattened on top by the pressure 

 of the feet. An old Indian, in answer to the question, how 

 long the log had been there, replied, "My father's father cross- 

 ed on that log,'" thus making it a hundred years old. In 

 Southern Illinois was another catalpa tree fallen across a 

 stream, still sound. A man, now living, says thai forty years 

 ago an old man told him that he crossed on that log when a 

 boy. making it nearly or quite one hundred years old. This 

 log was sawed into boards, and one of them, perfectly sound, 

 was exhibited at the Centennial by Prof. Burrill, of the Illi- 

 nois Industrial l : niversity. Large catalpa trees, back of New 

 Madrid, on the Mississippi River, in South-eastern Missouri, 

 killed by the eruptions in 1811, I am informed in a letter re- 

 ceived August 10th, from a gentleman living there, are still 

 standing, perfeetly sound, after (>7 years, and to use his ex- 

 pression, plenty of them. One of these was recently cut down, 

 and seven feet of the but and seven feet of the top sent to me. 

 The top, though worn to a point by the action of the wind 

 and rain is perfectly sound. The but, though showing on the 

 outside the result of long exposure, is as sound as it was sixty- 

 nine years ago when killed by the eruption. At Poplar Bluffs, 

 Henly, the ferryman, had a canoe made of catalpa, three feet 



