THE TEREDO. 11 



necessarily subjected to the atmospherical changes. Its de- 

 structive operations in European seas are not therefore weak- 

 ened by a less genial locality. In the years 1731 and 1732, 

 the United Provinces were under a dreadful alarm ; * for it 

 was discovered that these Mollusks had made such depreda- 

 tions on the piles which support the banks of Zealand and 

 Friesland, as to threaten them with total destruction, and to 

 reclaim from man what he had with unexampled labour 

 wrested from the ocean. A few years after they fortunately 

 abandoned the dikes ; but fearful of the return of an enemy 

 more powerful than the Grand Turk even, who boasted that 

 he would exterminate them with a host armed with spades 

 and shovels, the Dutch offered a reward of value to any one 

 who should discover a remedy to ward off their attacks, and 

 ointments, varnishes, and poisonous liquors were recom- 

 mended by the hundreds. The exact amount of the damage 

 done at this visitation, which Sellius, unable to discover any 

 natural cause for it, says was sent by the Deity to punish the 

 growing pride of the Hollanders, I have not been able to 

 ascertain. Writers in general speak of it as " very great ;" 

 and Dr. Job Baster mentions the Teredo as an animal "which 

 has done so many millions damage to these countries." -j- In 

 our own country it has done, and continues to do, extensive 

 mischief. The soundest and hardest oak cannot resist these 

 noxious creatures ; but, in the course of four or five years, 

 they will so drill it as to render its removal necessary, as has 

 repeatedly happened in the dock-yard of Plymouth. To pre- 

 serve the timbers used there, and exposed to them, the plan 

 now adopted is to cover the parts under water with short 

 broad-headed nails, which, in salt water, soon invests the 

 whole with a strong coating of rust impenetrable by their 

 augers. J The plan appears to have proved effectual, for, in 

 the harbours of Plymouth and Falmouth, where the Teredo 

 was once abundant, it is now rare or not to be found ; but 



* " Quantum nobis injicere terrorem valuit, quum primum nostros nefario 

 ausu muros conscenderet, exilis bestiola ! quanta fuit omnium, quamque 

 universalis consternatio ! quantus pavor ! quern nee homo homini, qui sibi 

 maxime alias ab invicem timent, incutere similem, nee armatissimi hostium 

 imminentes exercitus excitare majorem quirent. In planctus et lamenta- 

 tiones, ut sunt commune hominum in calamitatibus refugium, effusis pluri- 

 mis ; in investigandis remediis, salubriore consilio, toti occupabantur alii." 

 Sellius. Also Baster, Opusc. Subs. ii. 67. 



t Phil. Trans, abridg. viii. 379. 



t Montagu Test. Brit. 530. This author suggests a coating of pounded 

 flint or glass, laid on the timber with a firm cement, as probably an efficient 

 remedy. Ibid. 561. The bitter juice of the great American aloe, mixed 

 with pitch, is said to be a preservative. Lin. Corresp. i. 133. 



Osier in Phil. Trans, an. 1826. part iii. 358. Dr. Paris, however, on 



