307' 
On Preventing the Decay of Wood. 
also succeed when mixed with train oil, which is obtain- 
ed from the blubber of the whale. In the second volume 
of the Memoirs of this Society, printed in the year 1783, 
there is the following receipt. “Melt twelve ounces of 
jj resin in an iron pot or kettle ; add three gallons of train 
oil and three or four rolls of brimstone; and when the re- 
sin and brimstone are melted and become thin, add as 
much Spanish brown, or red or yellow ochre, or any co- 
lour you want, first ground line with some of the oil, as 
will give the whole as deep a shade as you like. Then 
lay it on with a brush as hot and thin as you can. Some 
days after the first coat is dried, give it a second. It will 
preserve plank for ages, and keep the weather from driv- 
ing through brick- work/ 7 Page 114. 
This composition I tried about eighteen years ago on 
some elm paling, substituting for th& colouring matter 
one or two coats of common white paint for the sake of 
the appearance. This paling appears to me to be in 
every part of it, which was covered, as sound as when it 
was first put up. 
As compositions of the resinous kind are apt to crack 
and become powdery, like the varnish of carriages, by 
exposure to weather, it is not improbable, that this effect 
may be in some measure counteracted by the mixture of 
a small proportion of bees 7 wax. Such a compound I 
have used, but in the quantity of eight ounces to the gal- 
lon found it too slow in drying, and capable of being easi- 
ly scraped off with the nail. Wax is also at this time 
very scarce and dear. 
All the substances contained in these mixtures are ca- 
pable of perfect incorporation witii each other by heat, 
and when separately exposed, are with great difficulty 
acted on by water or air in any heat which occurs in our 
climate. They should be applied hot with a common 
painter’s brush on the wood which is previously very 
