176 
ST. HELENA. 
revealed is attended with a good deal of danger and surprise. On 
a calm fine day, a couple of policemen standing at the Court-house 
door, with as great an appearance of dignity as St. Helena police- 
men can possess, were quite unnerved by the antics of a staid old 
Margossa tree in full foliage, which, long a shelter from 1 the sun’s 
heat, suddenly fell to pieces and prostrated itself around them — 
on examination it was found that Termites had completely hollowed 
out the stem and branches nearly to the bark. 
The destruction of the town became a matter of such grave im- 
portance, and the necessity for rebuilding with other materials than 
those similar to what the insects had destroyed so evident, that 
many valuable experiments were tried with various materials, at the 
•instigation of the then Governor, Admiral Sir Charles Elliot, K.C.B., 
and the results, affording much useful information, are embodied in 
a published official report. Numerous timbers and various com- 
positions were contributed from different parts of the world, but 
the Termites at St. Helena devoured most of them excepting teak 
timber, cedar, Brazilian yellow-wood, timber of the tree called 
Cunnwghamia lanceolata, and creosoted deal. There were also some 
very hard, close-grained timbers from South America and Africa, 
which they would not touch, but the cost of working them, together 
with other reasons, rendered it impracticable to use them at St. Helena. 
Of the compositions tried, creosote alone defied them, but the diffi- 
culty of getting timber completely impregnated with it has been ex- 
perienced at St. Helena as elsewhere. Teak has been most gene- 
rally used in reconstructing the town ; at present the Termites only 
bore through it ; what they may do, if they remain at St. Helena, 
which I am inclined to doubt, after the teak has well dried and there 
is no timber which they like better, remains to be seen. 
It is extremely fortunate that these insects have so far been con- 
fined to the town and its neighbourhood, and have not penetrated to 
the country or high land ; this may in a great measure be attri- 
buted to the fact of their having been introduced on the leeward side 
of the Island, and their inability in their migration by flight to make 
progress against the trade wind, rather than to their dislike for a 
colder climate. Their habit being to occupy the earth, they might 
descend to a considerable depth, so long as any vegetable matter 
exists in the soil, and thus continue to live in much colder climates 
if once sufficiently established. 
