668 



FARMERS' REGISTER— TIMBER FOR RxVIL ROADS, &c. 



mal manure, and to this mass of manure we may 

 heap on red clay without taking any thing away. 

 "VVe are, therefore, to consider animal excretions as 

 the real manuring principle, which can impart its 

 quality to any quantity of vegetable matter with 

 which it may be mixed, and this again can impart 

 its qualities to any quantity of clay with which it 

 may be mixed; or comparatively speaking, ani- 

 mal excretions to the manure heap may l)e consid- 

 ered as yest to the grain; a little of which with 

 sufficient labor and time, would ferment all the 

 grain on earth, and yet the whole would contain as 

 much fermenting principle as the first yest had ; or 

 as the small piece of glass of antimony which could 

 make emetic wine of all wine that has been made 

 since old father Noah took it too freeiy, and yet 

 have just as much emetic quality as belbre. It is 

 not however contended, that animal excretions are 

 the only manuring principles. 



II, R. H. 



ON TftE PETRIFYING OF WOOD, AS APPLICA- 

 BLE TO TI3IBER FOR RAILROADS, &C. 



From the American Railroad Journal. 



Some time since, in an eastern paper, their ap- 

 peared an article staling that some person had dis- 

 covered a method of completely petrifying wood, 

 and so preserving it nearly, or quite indestructible, 

 by saturation with hydrate of lime. If any of' 

 your correspondents can furnish any informalionof 

 the process ; or any facts which may elucidate the 

 subject, perhaps they might render an important 

 service to the cause of railroads, in situations which 

 require or admit the use of wood ; and I w ould re- 

 spectfully suggest to any who may recollect such 

 lixcts, that the commviuication of them to the Rail- 

 road Journal would be a gratisication to at least 

 one of its readers— probably to many. 



It is said that timber imbedded in lime, under 

 certain circumstances, as, for instance, the ends of 

 beams inserted in the walls of brick houses, decays 

 sooner than in the open air — becomes dry rotten, 

 &c. I have heard it argued that this is owing to 

 the causticity, or some other quality of the lime; 

 and to prevent the effect, it has been a practice, in 

 some cases, to leave a space for the ends of the 

 beams, large enough for the free circulation of air 

 around them, and free from contact with the lime 

 used in the construction of the v/alls. Whether 

 the facts observed in these cases fully justify the 

 conclusion that time is always, or ever, injurious to 

 the durability of the timber, I would not venture 

 to assert, and it is not my purpose now to inquire. 

 1 am willing to admit the conclusion that it may be 

 so in some cases ; but I wouhl suggest the inquiry 

 whether its causticity may not be so completely 

 destroyed by saturation with water, and in this 

 state whether wood may not be so far impregnated 

 with it as to become much more durable, and per- 

 haps next to indestructible. 



The notice mentioned at the introduction of this 

 article, if it may be relied on as fact, answers the 

 inquiry in the atiirmative. Of the fact, however, 

 I am ignorant, and therefore it is that I make this 

 communication and inquiry. My object is to 

 excite others to further investigations, and with 

 this end in veiw, I beg leave to state some facts of 

 which I have been informed, which seem to me to 

 prove sufficiently, that lime may, in some situa- 

 tions, be made to contribute very essentially to the 

 durability of wood ; and, perhaps, may suggest a 



remedy, to some important extent, for the disad- 

 vantages to which wooden railroads are obviously 

 liable. 



Some years ago, I was travelling on the ecacoast 

 of Maine, and put up for a night at the house of an 

 elderly gentleman, who had been all his days con- 

 cerned in ship-building and navigation, and aj>- 

 peared to be a sensible, shrewd observer. He had 

 iliat day, a new vessel arrived from her first voy- 

 age to a foreign port, and among other circum- 

 tantes was told that she had not leaked a drop du- 

 ring the voyage. This led me to remark that she 

 must have been exceedingly well built. He re- 

 plied that he thought the tightness of the vessel 

 was owing, in a measure, to the lime with which 

 she had been stuffed while building. He had been 

 led to believe that lime was a better preservative 

 of the timber of ships than salt, or any other sub- 

 stance heretofore used for that purpose. While 

 this vessel was being built, and before ceiling up 

 the inside, he had the interstices of the timbers 

 filled wilh new stone lime, pounded fine enough to 

 be driven in between the timbers, aiul rammed in 

 as solid as was possible in that state ; the planking 

 was then finished, and the lime left to slake and fill 

 the remaining interstices. His theory was, that 

 the air, and the moisture of the wood, and perhaps 

 a little water, which might be expected (o leak in- 

 to the best built vessel, would slakethe lime so that 

 its expansion would fill every chink in the tim- 

 bers, and penetrate the pores of the wood itself, suf- 

 ficiently to prevent speedy decay; but any effect 

 in rendering tlie vessel more staunch he had not 

 anticipated. He, however, concluded that the ex- 

 pansion of the lime, though, from its small quanti- 

 ty, not sufficient to injure the vessel by its me- 

 chanical force, yet hiul I'cen sufficient, by the ad- 

 dition of the little water which had 1-caked in, to 

 form a mass of' mortar so solid as to prevent, at 

 least in some degree, the further ingress of water 

 from without. This, however, was a new idea, and 

 the present experiment was not conclusive ; but as 

 to its effect in preserving the tim!)er, he had no 

 doubt; and he related several facts in his own 

 knowledge in support of this opinion^. 



As one instance, he stated that he had ence own- 

 ed a coasting vessel, Iniilt of the common timber 

 of the coast of Maine, which, when nearly new, 

 was once bound from Thomaslon to Boston, with 

 a cargo of lime, and on her passage w ent ashore 

 somewhere between Cape Ann and Boston, and 

 bilged. The lime slaked, burnt the deck and up- 

 per works, and, as might be expected, penetrated 

 the timbers throughout. The vessel was unloaded 

 repaired, and lived, I think he said, thirty or forty 

 years after this event ; had undergone occasional 

 repairs since, but the principal part of the original 

 timber remained. W hen, after that that time, ex:- 

 amined, it was found that the origin.d timbers, 

 which had been impregnated with the lime, were 

 perfectly sound, while those which had been added 

 since that time, were all, or nearly all, rotten. He 

 adduced, also, the fact that vessels employed in car- 

 rying lime, generally, if not always, last longer 

 than any others ; and said that he had resolved 

 thereafter to saturate, as far as possible, all his ves- 

 sels with lime, as the best method of preserving 

 them from decay. 



Another instance was that of a parcel of pine 

 planks which had been used as a platform, on the 

 ground, on which to make lime mortar. This 



