22 
On the Preservation of Timber. 
rendering the liquid more available, will also improve the cha- 
racter of the charcoal, as in the process of steeling the rails a 
certain proportion of soda is necessary. 
Fences. — The above preservative liquid being so fluid, it is 
admirably adapted for use in creosoting the timber employed 
along the railway for fences. For this purpose, it only requires 
to be heated above the boiling point of water in an iron tank, 
which can be mounted on a carriage and wheels, to travel from 
place to place. The posts and rails, being immersed in it and 
allowed to cool, may then be placed upright, in a cistern con- 
taining the same liquid, to two-thirds of their length, when the 
impregnation will proceed very rapidly. It is obvious that the 
same plan might be advantageously adopted by landed proprietors, 
for the fences on their estates. 
The adoption of this plan for preserving sleepers necessarily 
superseded that part of my proposal to combine the colouring or 
staining of timber with its preservation ; but I regret this the 
less, because the plans which MM. Renard and Perrin have in- 
vented have had the benefit of experience, and were rewarded 
with a silver medal at the Great French Exhibition in 1849. 
I have now the honour to recommend for adoption on your 
railways — 
1st. That the old waste sleepers and timber should be sub- 
mitted to distillation in suitable apparatus, and that the waste 
heat of your coke-ovens, or furnaces for steeling your rails, be 
employed for this purpose. The tar and pyroligneous acid and 
charcoal to be applied as already explained. 
2ndly. That the preservative liquid be employed in the manner 
recommended by Champy, for the preservation of the posts and 
rails of your fences. 
3rdly. That the wood which is now protected and ornamented 
by an external coating of paint, be stained and preserved by the 
process of MM. Renard and Perrin. 
Newcastle-on- Tyne, 
May, 1859. 
II, — On the best Means of applying Manure to the Land in a 
Liquid State. By Peter Love. 
In several parts of England and Scotland the system of applying 
liquid-manure to the land, by an arrangement of underground 
pipes, has been adopted ; from these pipes hydrants are brought 
to the surface in the centre of every four or five acres, and to 
these hydrants lengths of hose are attached, as the manuring ope- 
