iy% Mr. smeAthman’s Account of 
They fometimes, in carrying on this bufmefs, find, I wifi 
not pretend to lay how, that the poll has fome weight to fup- 
port, and then if it is a convenient track to the roof, or is itfelf 
a kind of wood agreeable to them, they bring their mortar, 
and fill all or mofr of the cavities, leaving the neceffary roads 
through it, and as faff as they take away the wood replace the 
vacancy with that material ; which being worked together by 
them clofer and more compaftly than human ffrength or art 
could ram it, when the houfe is pulled to pieces, in order to 
examine if any of the poffs are fit to be ufed again, thofe of the 
fofter kinds are often found reduced almoft to a {hell, and all or 
a greater part transformed from wood to clay as folid and as 
hard as many kinds of free-ffone ufed for building in England*. 
It is much the fame when the 'Termites bellicof get into a cheff 
or trunk containing cloaths and other things ; if the weight 
we cannot in the prefent harmonious bate of things form any idea whereas now 
being confumed by thefe animals, they are more eafily broken in pieces by the. 
waves ; and the fragments which are not devoured become fpecifically lighter,., 
and are confequently more readily and more effedtually thrown on fliore, where the 
fun, wind, infedts, and various other inbruments, fpeedily promote their entire 
diffolution, and rebore the conftituent particles to that 
* .. . .. “ Mighty hand, 
44 Which, ever biify, wheels the blent fpheres ; 
iC Works in the fecret deep ; flioots, beaming, thence 
44 The fair profufion that o’erlpreads the fpring: 
44 Flings from the fun diredt the flaming day ; 
“ Feeds every creature; hurls the tempeft forth j 
“ And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
44 .With tranfport touches all the fprings of life.” Thomsons 
* That wood will endure in v r ater an amazing number of ages, is apparent from the oak fakes which 
Were driven into the bed of the river Thames on the invafion of this illand by 'Julius Cafar, one of which is 
to be feen in Sir as h t on l ever’s Mufeum, and likewife from thofe bodies of trees which aredaily found 
in the bogs and morafles of Great Britain and Ireland, which aftel a duration, the former of eighteen 
hundred, the latter of upwards of two thoufand years, are found in a perfedt bate of prefervation. 
above 
