FARMERS^ REGISTER— ROT IN TIMBER. 



307 



positive it would all turn to chess ; but not being 

 troubled with that notion, he took his own course. 

 The piece contained two acres wanting fifteen 

 rods, and at harvest he had forty-lour bushels of 

 good wheat. d. t. 



Greatfield, Cayuga Co., 9 mo. 2, 1833. 



TIIK ROT IN TIMBER. 



From the Genesee Farmer. 



A preventive seems to have been discovered of 

 the rot, particularly the dry rot, in wood, which 

 promises to be oi' the greatest advantage in naval 

 arciiitecture. It consists in applying to the wood 

 a solution of dento-cliloride of mercury (corrosive 

 sublimate) which arrests the natural process of de- 

 composition, by combining with the albumen, (the 

 latent element of vitality, and the cause of decay) 

 whether in an active or dormant state, and killing 

 it. The expense of the application is said to be 

 comparatively trifling. 'IMie extract which we 

 subjoin, from the Quarterly Review, will show the 

 principles upon which the discovery is based, and 

 the tests of its efficacy. 



" The theory may be considered as founded on 

 the great truth thus succinctly stated by Four- 

 croy : ' The aim of nature in exciting fermenta- 

 tion, is to render more simple the compounds form- 

 ed by vegetation and animalization, and to employ 

 them in new combinations.' Mr. Knowles, in 

 commenting on Fourcroy's dictum, says: 



" Thus is the great law of nature fulfilled, that the 

 death of one body shall give life to others. When 

 the animal dies, and fermentation takes place, flies 

 deposit their eggs, maggots are formed, and the 

 fleshy parts are destroyed ; when the vegetable bo- 

 dy falls, it is eaten b)' worms of" another kind, or 

 destroyed by fungi; and if, in consequence of the 

 employment of art, the duration of either is exten- 

 ded, that slow l)ut sure destroyer, I'ime, at length 

 renders them to their native earth, to serve in their 

 turn for nutriment to others." 



In the next paragraph INTr. Knowles advances 

 another and a very important step: 



" When an animal or vegetable body is depriv- 

 ed of life, the very principles which were the cau- 

 ses of its nutriment become the means of its decay. 

 To bring about decomposition the same agents are 

 necessary as to promote vegetation, — air, heat and 

 moisture, under proper modifications and com- 

 binations. In a vegetable body, when the fermen- 

 tation process begins, the vessels or fibres of which 

 it is com})osed are put in motion ; a separation of 

 them takes ])iace ; the volume is consequently en- 

 larged, and it generally suffers an alteration in co- 

 lor. As the process advances towards putrefaction, 

 heat is evolved, and carbonic gas is disengaged." 

 The Quarterly proceeds : 



" In the germination, which converts the acorn 

 into the oak, and in the putrefaction which reduces 

 the felled tree to a bed of fungi, or a hive of in- 

 sects, — the same great vegetative principle is at 

 work. Vegetable albumen (comliined, in various 

 proportions, with farinaceous, mucilaginous and 

 saccharine matter,) is the primary constituent of 

 every seed. When exposed to atmospheric ^lir, 

 under a certain temperature, — not lower than 32° 

 nor higher than 100°, Farenheit, — the germina- 

 ting power is brought into action, and the seed be- 

 comes a tree. The first year's growth forms the 

 pith, the alburnum and the bark : in the following 

 year or years, the ])!th becomes heart-wood, and 



when that is formed, every preceding year adds 

 another concentric layer of alburnum, which in its 

 turn ultimately becomes heart-wood. The bark 

 has an expansive growing power, so as to admit 

 the yearly extension of the alburnum; but it has 

 also a strong compressive energy, expelling mois- 

 ture from the layers that successively assume the 

 character of heart-wood, — but not expelling the 

 vegetable albumen, which, squeezed into a con- 

 crete form, remains shut up in the interstices, even 

 to the very centre of the tree. The active vitality 

 of the tree is in the alburnum, through the vessels 

 of which, perpendicularly, and also latterly, the 

 sap ascends and circulates ; but the principal of 

 vitality, — the albumen of the parent seed, — conti- 

 nues to be present, though dormant, in the com- 

 pact tissue of the heart of oak ; and capable, even 

 after the lapse of centuries, during which it has 

 been preserved from the action of air and moisture, 

 of exhibiting its vegetative power on being ex- 

 posed to tliese influences." 



It is by destroying this latent element of vitali- 

 ty in the central body of the tree, — of extirpating 

 the dormant life of the concrete albumen, that the 

 process of decay is arrested. Sir Humplu-cy Da- 

 vy first suggested the sublimate as the antidote, 

 but had his doubts whether the application would 

 not sul)sequent]y prove deleterious to human health. 

 Mr. Faraday has subsequently made a CQurse of 

 experiments, in the dockyards at London and 

 Woolwich, which seem to demonstrate the efficien- 

 cy of the a])plication, and that the mercury is neu- 

 tralized, and rendered innoxious, by its chemical 

 union with the albumen of the wood. The follow- 

 ing exhibits one of the tests: 



"The " fungus pit" at W^oolwich is a subterra- 

 neous chamber lined with wood in the worst pos- 

 silile slate of corruption: it is kept extremely 

 damp, generates carbonic acid gas in profusion, and 

 in short, forms, as its name implies, a perfect hot- 

 bed for the growth of all those fungi that used to 

 be considered as the causes, but which are only the 

 most usual symptoms, of dry rot. It is a proverb 

 among the people of the dock-yard, that a month 

 in ike hole is worse for a Itit of timber, than ten 

 years in almost any possible situation out of it. 

 We have ourselves visited this noxious place, and 

 seen an hour and a half elapse, after opening the 

 trap door, before a candle would burn six inches 

 beneath tiie surface. Blocks of timber, — oak, elm, 

 pine, beech, &«•. ^prepared with the solution of 

 sublimate, have now, as Mr. Faraday said, and as 

 the printed documents before us prove distinctly, 

 stood the test of the fungus pit, without exhibiting 

 the slightest symptom of decay, during no less a 

 period some of them than Jive Tjears : and these, in- 

 stead of being insulated by means of some hetero- 

 genous sul)stance, hath been lying on the fungus 

 spread floor of the dungeon, each with an unmedi'- 

 cated fragment of the very same tree, and of the 

 like bulk, close by its side — every one of which 

 unprepared pieces v/as found at the opening of the 

 pit in rapid progress of decomposition." 



Meditated timber was found to resist the action 

 of dropping eaves, during a course of time suffi- 

 cient to Ijring utter decay upon unprepared ones 

 similarly exposed. Canvass, and even delicate 

 calico, saturated with th'e solution, placed in the 

 fungus ;)it tln-ee months, came out entirely sound 

 while of.' the unmedicated counterparts, {here re- 

 mained notli'ing but a few mildewed strings that 



