140 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
Bean... $i ae a E at ; 5 years. 
Elm, Ash, Hornbeam, and Lombardy Poplars I "Toup 
Oak, Scotch Fir, Weymouth Pine, and Silver Fir, were only affected to a 
depth of half an inch in seven years, and Larch, Juniper, and Arbor Vite 
were not touched at all in that time. 
Vegetable decay or dry rot, is a regular disease induced in unseasoned 
timber by defective ventilation. In most parts of the world this is the 
worst enemy that timber has; we hear of ships being destroyed, and houses 
being made uninhabitable in an incredibly short time through its ravages 
and even cargoes of timber are seriously affected on the voyage from 
America to England. Hitherto this disease has been little known in Otago, 
not because any precautions are taken against it, but simply on account of 
the defects in our wooden buildings which give ample ventilation. I have 
seen several instances of dry rot in brick and stone buildings in Dunedin, 
but few in wooden ones; it is however very common in the timber work 
of mines. 
The third cause of decay in timber, that by animals, is also of minor 
importance in Otago: the marine animals have caused some little trouble, 
but the land ones are scarcely known as destroyers in material that has 
been used. The latter class consist of a small beetle supposed to be much 
the same as the English one, and the large white worm that used to be 
eaten by the Maoris. These beetles are very destructive, particularly in 
carvings, but they are easily destroyed by fumigations; the large worm is 
very common in old trees lying in the forest, and I have seen it in piles that 
had not been barked, but never in wrought timber. 
The marine animals most destructive to timber are the Teredo navalis 
or marine worm, and Limnoria terebrans, a small boring crab of the leech 
family, both of which are common in New Zealand waters. Captain Hut- 
ton finds that our Teredo is somewhat different from the European one, 
consequently it is called the Teredo antarctica. The Teredo is a worm-like 
animal from three to twenty-four inches in length, and from a quarter to 
an inch in diameter, according to the nature of the wood in which it has 
taken up its abode. It is furnished with a wonderful boring apparatus, like 
a pair of shell augurs, by which it perforates the hardest timber with 
astonishing rapidity. The smaller animal, which Mr. Kirk says is allied to 
Limnoria lignorum, although scarcely larger than a grain of rice, is as 
destructive as the Teredo. Large numbers attack the timber and speedily 
destroy it by fairly eating it away ; indeed some animals of this species are 
able to penetrate stone. 
The effectual preservation of timber in all conditions is a problem not 
yet solved. Oleaginous and bituminous substances retard the progress of 
