2 
Indian Forest Records. 
[VOL. Ill 
officers enquiry was a valuable report, in wbicb he laid down a scheme 
for treating coniferous timbers with chloride of zinc and sulphate of 
copper. His proposals, however, were never carried through. 
The various plants working according to different methods, which 
were erected in the sixties, were for one reason or another all discontinued, 
so that in spite of all the attention paid to this subject and the large 
sums of money expended in experiments during the last 50 years, it may 
be said that, though the results are instructive and the records valuable, 
the practical results are nil. 
One has only to glance at Appendices B and F of the Report of the 
International Railway Congress of 1902 on the causes of the deteriora¬ 
tion of wooden sleepers or cross-ties, to see that all the great railway 
systems of India use untreated sleepers, with the exception of the 
Bombay, Baroda and Central India, the Bhavnagar-Grondal and Morvi 
Railways, who either use tarred or creosoted sleepers or both. The 
extended use of antiseptics for the preservation of sleepers has therefore 
still to be introduced into India. 
To account for this backward state of affairs in India is by no means 
easy, considering that in Europe and America practically all railways use 
treated sleepers. Were the suitable timbers produced by the forests of 
India so plentiful, cheap and of such excellent quality as to render un¬ 
necessary the employment of artificial means for their preservation, the 
matter would require no further consideration, but this is not the 
case. It is true that most excellent sleeper woods such as Teak, Sal, 
Pyinkado and t Deodar do occur in great quantities in the State Forests 
but even 30 years ago the price of these timbers was high, while now 
Teak can be sold in the log at prices which render it, when converted into 
sleepers, too expensive for railway requirements. The other species are 
still largely on the market as sleeper woods, though in most cases their 
price is not far below the working limit, especially that of Sal. 
Position of the Market. 
Another consideration is the possible annual output as compared with 
the present and future demand. The requirements of the Railway 
systems of India, for new construction, as also for replacing worn out 
sleepers are very large. It is difficult to estimate the relative position of 
the possible supply as compared with the present and prospective demand, 
hence it is proposed to limit the scope of this note to existing conditions. 
( 75 ) 
