176 On the Dry Rot. 



it would otherwise be. It is invariably the case, that by the 

 time the planks become thoroughly seasoned the alburnum be- 

 comes so injured by the dry rot as to be unfit to be used ; and for 

 my own part I never saw any timber of this sort where the heart- 

 wood was affected at all, unless the tree had contracted the dis- 

 ease before its death. Now I appeal, for the truth of these asser- 

 tions, to all the experienced ship-carpenters who are in the least 

 acquainted with this kind of timber. The season of peeling is 

 from the third week in May to the second week in June. It is 

 not probable that all the timbers required for a seventy-four, or 

 indeed any other public vessel, are cut in the compass of any one 

 month, but that they commence perhaps in October, and continue 

 the cutting into April, and sometimes into May, and in cases of 

 great emergency, into June. Then, if I am right in my views, 

 various periods must elapse before all the timbers will have been 

 attacked by the disease ; and when the planks are taken off from 

 any one of them preparatory to their being repaired, do not the 

 timbers present that appearance ? Are there not those on which the 

 dry rot hgis exhausted all its power and finished their destruction, 

 and others which are less decayed, others not so much ? Indeed, 

 the disease can be traced until you find those which seem to defy 

 and continue to defy its energy, even after the vessel has under- 

 gone repeated repairs, and these circumstances occur too, even 

 after the timbers have been subjected to some artificial process ta 

 make them more durable. 



The following is a case in point. In the North American Re- 

 view, No. xcv. for April, 1837, pp. 343-44, in the article on the 

 Sylva Americana, the following passage occurs. " The white 

 oak was largely employed in the frame of our favorite frigate (the 

 Constitution) which was built forty years ago. In the course of 

 the very thorough repair to which this vessel was lately subjected, 

 many of the white oak timbers of her frame were found in ex- 

 cellent condition ; and it is stated on the best authority, that in 

 several instances the timbers of this description were sound, while 

 others by their sides, of the southern live oak, had decayed. Now 

 the superiority of the live oak, in point of durability, over the 

 oak of any other country, has never been doubted." Why did not 

 all the white oak timber last forty years, if there had not been 

 some variation of the season of cutting them ? and so with the 

 live oaks. 



