210 
On the Use of Home-grorm Timber. 
sent the effect intended and produced. He says : " when injected 
into a piece of wood the creosote coagulates the albumen, and thus 
prevents putrefactive decomposition, and the bituminous oils en- 
tering the whole of the capillary tubes encase the Avoody fibre as 
with a shield, and close up the whole of the pores so as to entirely 
exclude both water and air. These bituminous oils being in- 
soluble in water, and unaffected by air, render the process 
universally applicable." I quote these words because they fitly 
describe the effect aimed at by the process oi injection, viz., the pre- 
servation of wood when exposed to the influence of the weather. 
The immersion of wood in a solution of lime renders it, 
by the cheap and simple process of absorption, equally durable 
when used above ground and under shelter, and will be found 
worth equal attention. That timber, when immersed for a short 
time in a solution of lime, undergoes much the same chemical 
changes as when subjected to the action of metallic agents, or to 
the process of creosoting, will be apparent from the following 
statement of Dr. Voelcker, who, at the request of Mr. Bigge, has 
analysed three specimens of the timber used. They were, — 
" 1. Piece of native Scotch fir grown in a peaty soil at Chet- 
wynd Park, cut down in 1840, and used in a cart-shed after 
having been soaked three weeks in lime-water. Age about sixty 
years growth." 
" 2. Piece of Scotch fir from the same wood as No. 1, but 
not soaked in lime-water." 
" 3. Piece of Scotch fir soaked in lime-water, about three 
weeks since (December, 1867). 
Upon these specimens the Doctor makes the following 
remarks in a letter to me : — 
" I have found that the timber submitted to the lime process 
contains considerably more lime than portions of the same wood 
not soaked in lime-water, for timber thus soaked absorbs and 
retains appreciable quantities of lime. 
" Timber treated in this Avay, I am assured, stands the weather 
remarkably well, and is not subject to the decay to which unpre- 
pared timber is so liable. A ready explanation of the cause of 
the benefit resulting from soaking wood in lime-water suggests 
itself in the well-known property of lime to combine with 
albumen, and similar nitrogenous compounds present in all wood, 
to form with them insoluble and stable compounds. 
" Soluble albuminous matters, I need hardly say, exist in 
larger proportions in green sap-wood than in hard old wood, and 
this is one of the chief reasons why young or green wood decays 
so readily, for the soluble albuminous compounds in the sap of 
the wood are prone to suffer decomposition in the presence ot 
damp air, and their decomposition affects the woody structure 
and causes its gradual decay. 
