THE COMMON LARCH. 501 



at large in a national point of view. Nor have the anti- 

 cipations of the most sanguine been disappointed, the vari- 

 ous ships which have been built of its timber having been 

 found equal in many respects to those made of the best 

 oak, and superior to them in others. 



The first instance of British Larch having been used in 

 ship-building is stated by Matthew to have taken place 

 about 1809, in the Tay, where a sloop, in which the upper 

 timbers had become decayed, was repaired with Larch ; 

 this vessel, it appears, about eighteen years afterwards, went 

 to pieces upon the Fifeshire coast, and part of her remains 

 having been washed ashore, the Larch with which she 

 had been repaired was found as tough and sound as when 

 first put into the vessel, " having assumed," as he observes, 

 " the dark blue colour which some timbers acquire in moist 

 situations, when it may be styled cured, and when it is no 

 longer subject to the putrid change engendering dry-rot." 



A few years afterwards, a fine brig, called the " Larch, 1 ' 

 was built by the Duke of Athol; and in 1816, the keel 

 of the Athol, a frigate of twenty-eight guns, was laid 

 down, and the vessel finished in 1820, being built entirely 

 of Larch from the newly created forests of Blair and Dun- 

 keld, and this vessel, we may add, has proved in every 

 way, as to strength and durability, equal to one built 

 of oak. 



Among the properties possessed by the Larch, and which 

 peculiarly fit it for naval architecture, is its toughness 

 combined with its lightness, which, as Matthew observes, 

 renders it superior to any other timber for the construc- 

 tion of bombs and war vessels ; the effect of cannon-shot 

 being only as it were to bore a hole like an auger, no 

 splintering or splitting of the wood, generally more destruc- 

 tive to life than the shot itself, taking place, in consequence 



