48 
Indian Forest Records . 
[Vol. III. 
“ The value o£ the treatment having l)een fairly well established, the 
Government authorised the construction of a Powellizing plant, and one 
capable of processing on an average 9,000 (V x 9" x 4J") sleepers per 
week has been erected at Banbury (a seaport south of Perth, which is the 
outlet for most of the export timber of the State), where it is intended to 
treat for Government use, particularly for Railway construction and 
maintenance purposes, such timbers as are susceptible to dry rot and 
termites. The plant was erected by and is under the control of the 
Railway Department, and we are now processing the timber required for 
construction of the Port Headland-Marble Bar Railway, a line of about 
114 miles in length in the North-West (Tropics).” 
“ The plant has not been long in operation and so far the cost has 
come out at Id. per sleeper, plus royalty to the Patentees.” 
In another letter by Mr. Bacon addressed to a gentlemanin England, 
he states that in West Australia “the Commissioner of Railways has 
agreed that all timber used in the railway systems of the State shall 
be powellized.” Further that “the Powell Company in New South Wales 
puts through something like one million feet of timber a month, used 
for Railway sleepers, wood-paving blocks, etc., and that in New Zealand 
much the same amount is treated monthly.” 
From the above records it will be seen that in Australia and New 
Zealand the process has been accepted by many of the Railway Companies 
and that the results up to date are very favourable. 
Many other records are available from other parts of the world, 
notably from the Philippines, Malay States, Natal, and the Transvaal, all 
of which are satisfactory, though the experiments on which the reports are 
based are not so exhaustive as those carried out in Australia. 
Indiax'j Records. 
A fair number of experiments have been carried out in India with 
powellized timber but none of them on a very extensive scale. The first 
set of experiments were carried out at the instigation of Mr. Ryan, 
Deputy Conservator of Forests, Bombay. These consisted in clamping 
together treated and untreated blocks of three varieties of timber. These 
were placed in ant-hills on the 5th April 1906, and examined on the 
13th September 1906 ; one set was attacked by the ants, the treated 
pieces of the other two were untouched, while the untreated pieces 
were heavily attacked bv white-ants. 
( 121 ) 
