EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING. 31 
Battery ; Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Co.’s 
docks, Hoboken; New Haven, Provincetown, Massachusetts, and 
Aspinwall. 
You will notice several sections that are only partially eaten. 
The teredo plainly avoided the dark, stained portion. This lat- 
ter part was saturated with the creosote oil of coal-tar. This 
substance has been found to be an entire protection against 
the ravages of the teredo. Please notice that the two speci- 
mens of yellow pine are creosoted, the other not. They were 
sent by my friend E. R. Andrews, Esq., of Boston, to Capt. 
Truxton, Commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard, June rst, 1878, 
and exposed five months in the harbor. The uncreosoted speci- 
mens are extensively perforated ; the creosoted section are 
untouched. Piling and timber are placed ina large iron cylinder, 
one hundred feet long and six feet in diameter. Steam heat at 
two hundred and forty degrees vaporizes all the sap, which 
passes off through pipes. The oil is passed in, and powerful 
force-pumps press the oil to the centre of the heaviest timber. 
Ten pounds of oil to the cubic foot is sufficient to protect it 
for many years from not only the teredo under water, but also 
decay above water. ‘Extensive docks and piers in Great Britain, 
France, Belgium, and Holland have been thus preserved for 
over thirty years in waters where the teredo would otherwise 
have destroyed them in from two to four years. It is only 
seven years since creosoted timber was first used in the sea in 
this country. All that has been done here is still perfectly 
sound, and will undoubtedly equal the life of creosoted struc- 
tures in Europe. The average life of uncreosoted docks and 
bridges is but seven years. 
Extensive works for creosoting have been erected at Elizabeth- 
port, N. J., Boston, Mass., and Pascagoula, Miss. Others are 
in contemplation. 
I sincerely trust that the result of this presentation of facts, 
which are undoubtedly new to most of our fellow-citizens, will 
serve to hasten the time when our commercial marine, as well as 
our harbor improvements, may be thoroughly armed against 
both the teredo and decay. 
