THE ECONOMIC MOLLUSCA OF ACADIA. 
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texture are the best, for they take the oil better. Creosote 
has the advantage also of preserving timbers not only from 
Teredo , but from other destructive agencies, for it is a good 
antiseptic. 
This method has been tried and found good in our own 
waters, as the following passage from Mr. Murphy’s paper 
proves. Speaking of Sidney harbor, Cape Breton, he says: 
•“Here the Teredo is seemingly as destructive, if not more so, 
than at any point on our coast, and here, about ten years ago, 
a coal-loading pier was erected, sufficiently large that three 
ocean-going steamers could load coal at the same time. The 
pier runs out into the harbor. It was erected entirely of pine 
trunks, creosoted in Great Britain, and sent out here. It has 
most effectively withstood the ravages of the Teredo, whilst 
all other piles in the neighborhood had to be renewed twice.” 
Mr. Murphy points out the desirability of the establishment 
of a creosoting apparatus in Nova Scotia, and of a careful 
study of means of overcoming the Limnoria lignorum . 
There are other methods of protecting marine works from 
Teredo which have their value. A timber completely sheathed 
with metal is safe ; hence copper-bottomed ships are not 
troubled. Docks and wharves have been sheathed with 
different metals, but these are efficacious only so long as the 
surface is unbroken. Accident, the action of the water on 
the plates, etc.., will not, however, as a rule, long permit this. 
A modification of this method consists in covering the timber 
with short iron nails having square, flat heads. But these 
must be placed close together, with their edges touching, and 
this is very expensive. In the American Naturalist, Vol. XVI. 
1882, p. .967, another method is described as follows: “His 
machinery cuts out a cylinder two inches thick from between 
the core and the outside of a log, and of any desired caliber. 
By retaining the core and filling the cylindrical excavation 
around it with a special cement, it is thought that the 
ravages of the Teredo could be confined to the outer part 
of a pile so treated, and the core, which is expected to sustain 
the needed weight, would be protected by the cement, which 
an its turn would be preserv-ed from friction by the outer 
