CHAPTER VII 



THE " DRY-ROT '' OF TIMBER. 



It has long been known that timber which has been 

 felled, sawn up, and stored in wood-yards, is by no 

 means necessarily beyond danger, but that either in 

 the stacks, or even after it has been employed in 

 building construction, it may suffer degeneration of a 

 rapid character from the disease known generally as 

 "dry-rot." The object of the present chapter is to 

 throw some light on the question of diy~rot, by sum- 

 marizing the chief results of recent botanical inquiiies 

 into the nature and causes of the disease — or, rather, 

 diseases, for it will be shown that theie are several 

 kinds of so-called " dry-rot " 



The usual signs of the ordinary dry-rot of timber 

 in buildings, especially deal-timber or fir-wood, arc as 

 follows. The wood becomes darker in colour, dull 

 yellowish-brown instead of the paler tint of sound 



