276 
TIMBEE 
a number of small orifices in the woodwork in order to 
prevent decay, and even so late as the nineteenth century — ■ 
so history repeats itself — a famous north-country engineer 
recommended the coating of piles from the ground level to 
about low water with whale oil as a preventative against 
the sea worm. The Ephesians were probably successful, 
the engineer was not. 
Tlie first English patent for the artificial preservation of 
timber appears to have been taken out in 1738, since which 
time, as has been truly said, " almost every chemical 
principle or compound of any plausibility has been sug- 
gested for the purpose." Britton, in his treatise on " Dry 
Kot in Timber," enumerates twenty-nine different sub- 
stances which had been used for preserving wood ; at the 
present time they probably number 200. Over 120 patents 
exist in America alone. Those dealt with here may be 
called " the survival of the fittest." 
Burnettizing was invented by Sir William Burnett in 1838, 
and has kept its ground ever since. 
It consists of an injection of chloride of zinc in the pro- 
portion of one part of the zinc solution, having a specific 
gravity of 1'6, to 40 parts of water, and it is forced into the 
wood under pressure of 150 lbs. to the square inch. It was 
claimed for it that it hardens the fibre and prevents decay. 
The process was for some time favoured by the English 
Government, but is not now, so far as the author knows, 
employed in this country. It is still, however, either in the 
original form or with various modifications, extensively 
used in the case of sleepers on the German, Austrian, 
Dutch, and French railways, and is the chief method used 
for the preservation of sleepers on the United States rail- 
ways, where it is called the zinc chloride process, owing to 
its cheapness, although creosote is now largely used. 
