Part 11.] Pearson: Antiseptic Treatment of Timber. ll 
[b) It must be capable of withstanding, for a reasonable number 
of years, the ravages of insects, fungoid growth, and the 
climatic influences to which it may be exposed.” 
As regards rule (a) cited above, it has been found that the wear and 
tear caused to soft-woods by the cutting action of the bed plate can, in 
a measure, be overcome by increasing the size of the bed plate, but even 
then the spike hole becomes enlarged. In America when soft-woods are 
employed, which with the help of an antiseptic can in themselves be 
made suitable for sleepers, the difficulty of the spike hole becoming en¬ 
larged and the bed plate wearing into the sleeper is sometimes overcome 
by letting in a hardwood plate at a point over which the bearing will 
come and driving m a dowel or plug of hardwood to receive the spike. 
These methods of preparing sleepers have proved fairly successful, but 
whether such a procedure would be accepted by the Indian Railways, 
who ask for extremely high standard of sleeper, is doubtful. 
Rule (b) refers to the attacks of insects and fungi. Termites do 
considerable damage to sleepers; fungi also help largely towards their 
deterioration especially in damp localities, and it is to overcome these two 
methods of destruction that antiseptics are required. We may for the 
present eliminate the idea of doctoring the sleepers so as to bring them 
up to standard and rigidly adhere in the selection of our timbers for 
antiseptic treatment to the conditions laid down as to (i) Price, (ii) 
Possible output, and (iii) Mechanical fitness. 
Possible Sleeper Woods. 
The following is a list of timbers, excluding Teak, Sal, Deodar and 
Pyinkado requiring no treatment, which, it is thought, more or less meet 
these conditions and which are at present used to a certain extent as 
sleepers or might be used for this purpose, in any case which would 
be improved sufficiently by treatment to be classed as good sleeper 
timbers :— 
1. Terminalia tovnentosa. 
2. Mesua ferrea. 
3. Dipterocarpus alatus. 
Most likely to fulfil the neces- \ 4. Dipterocarpus tuberculatus. 
sary requirements. 5. Pinus excelsa. 
| 0. Pinas loncjifolia. 
( ^ ) 
