108 
On destroying Vermin on Board Skips by Steam. 
12. For large ships, where the unmasting would be laborious, we conceive that 
long bags made of painted canvas, might be put over the mast heads, and nailed In 
deck, and the steam admitted into them. Painted canvas also might be lacked 
with wooden battens to the deck, and to the outside, enclosing the sides all round, and 
this might he extended to hawse chocks, quarter galleries, and to all parts which it 
would be inconvenient to remove. 
13. By lifting the ship’s pumps about 3 feet, one of them may he fitted as t 
safety steam valve, and the other as a safety air valve, and thus a communication 
he made quickly with the lower part of the hold. The steam pipes should be long 
enough to introduce the steam into the bottom of the hold, as otherwise the steam 
and heat would be for a long time intercepted from the lower parts of the vessel, bv 
a stratum of air. 
14. Such of the steamers as may he intended to be used for steaming ships, 
might conveniently, and at small expense, be provided with a spare boiler man- 
hole cover. 
15. The whole apparatus for steaming could easily be transferred to any one of 
the steamers, and would then be available for any ship. Independent of the man- 
hole cover, the parts would merely consist of two pipes of copper (fitted with stop- 
cocks) of 5 inches diameter, together with a steam safety valve pipe, and an air 
Safety valve pipe, for the ship about to undergo the process*. 
16. In steaming ships afloat, it will obviously occur to hang the steamer on to 
the vessel to be steamed, and then so to secure the two, as to prevent the crew 
motion their being separately moored would cause, to the injury of the steam 
pipes. For steaming ships in dock it will lie requisite to have a boiler set so near 
to tbe dock, as to admit of having pipes fitted for the conveyance of the steam W 
the ship. 
17. It will he requisite, when the steam has been admitted into a ship, wh<- 
ther it be afloat or in dock, Uf have a cauldron of boiling water ready to kill in- 
sects which may try to escape ; and it will he requisite to have a few persons in 
attendance, to shut up places where steam shows itself, as well as to attend to the 
state of the pipes, and of the operation. 
18. Me come now to the consideration of the vast importance to shipping in 
tropical climates, which this successful experiment of steaming of ships, to destroy 
white ants, has indicated. The speedy riddance of rats, cockroaches, centipedes, and 
scorpions would alone be of importance. The waste of property by tbe two first is 
yen' considerable, and fumigation is frequently employed to get rid of them : smok- 
ing is dangerous, inasmuch as many ships have been burned in the process hot 
although smoking kills rate, it will not kill cock-roaches nor ants; neither has it 
the slightest destructive effect on their eggs, so that while the larger tribe of noxi- 
ous animals may he got rid of by this means, the smaller and much more dangerous 
ones, the white ants, are left to destroy the ship. 
. 19- Sinking is no doubt an effectual measure for the extirpation of those 
insects, but it is one which can be resorted to only in small ships, and in them even 
at a considerable risk of entire loss, and at considerable expense, a great waste of 
time in the employment of the vessel, and the disadvantage of laying a foundation, 
by the introduction of mud, for a future, more successful attack. In fact, it 1® 
invariably been found, that vessels which had been sunk to kill white ants, were 
speedily infested afterwards, and rapidly destroyed. 
., 20 ’ Thebt-ing enabled to eradicate white ants from Indian ships, must hare 
the effect of giving an enhanced value to this description of propertv It is on 
record, as well as a truth familiar to the oflicers of the Marine Department, tint 
several Government vessels have been entirely destroyed by white ants - and further, 
tnat by their ravages great public loss has been sustained : under such circuiu- 
oi Ce ‘mi 00 ‘" Uch fam ? 1 bc sairi in fnvo,,r of BUcl < an application of steam. 
,. be access of the present experiment may form an era in the history of In- 
ceneralme^'-ri ^ “‘earning of vessels to destroy vermin, must speedily come ink 
Then the only wonder will be that, seeing the common application of 
t0 , ost evcr y purpose, its excellence as a substitute for fumigation was not 
in this country sooner suggested.’* b 
ft.Jl+.,T5 rt r a lu COn ^ erlsation ’ Slich as io the case of the Iiivestisratnr led to the 
agaiust? ° f ti>e “ Pl>er <le<k P illars > wouUl b V tllese calves be effectually guarded 
