AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 629 



pervading the soil and filling every crevice. I found that it had 

 utterly destroyed all the dead roots of the oak and pLants on the 

 edge. Its branches spread all over and around the wooden 

 trough, covering it with a whiteness resembling a white-wash. I 

 found wherever the plant touched the gutta-percha wires the 

 gutta-percha was rotten. I find that the wooden troughs laid 

 down in March last, (1856) in the vicinity of this plant, are 

 more rotten than troughs within seven yards of the same, (where 

 there is no trace of the plant,) which have been down since the 

 commencement I anticipate that the whole of the wires which 

 have been lately laid down in those particular parts, will again 

 decay in a short period of time . Tlie breakage that must have 

 taken place, and which is taking place, in spots over a length not 

 exceeding one-third of a mile, is quite enough to stop all tele- 

 graphing between Manchester and London. 



On my first noticing this peculiar su])terraneous plant, I 

 immediately searched for funguses under those oak trees. I found 

 a yellowish green fungus luxuriantly growing under every oak, 

 without exception, but not one under an ash or other tree. 



Whether this vegetable production, the white, is tlie spawn of 

 that fungus or not, I cannot say. The facts observed to-day 

 would almost warrant that conclusion. It has a powerful odor. 

 On breaking up the soil a few inches it is at once detected. The 

 absence of this plant and a most perfect state of wires are coinci- 

 dent also. All the wires were two feet deep in the ground. 



I have examined the spawn with a microscope of the power of 

 500,000 times. It jDresents all the characteristics of the mycel- 

 ium of the fungus. Wire near oak trees with no fungus were 

 unhurt. I have examined tlie wires which were laid in iron 

 2:>!pe and tliey were in a state of decay witliin one incli of the 

 ends, while that in the adjoining Avooden boxing was as perfect 

 as when first laid down. In one wire at Winslow, I found the 

 gutta-percha so decayed and cracked that the copper wire inside 

 was visible. The decay in the iron pipes is from causes totally 

 different from that by fungus. 



