Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/573

Rh Flessingue, the pieces of oak, pine, and red fir, were found intact, while those unprepared were perforated. In the month of October, of the same year, the pieces of creosoted pine and fir at Harlingen showed a perfect state of preservation. At Harlingen the treated and untreated pieces were fastened together; the teredo penetrated the latter, but had not touched the creosoted wood. The same was true of the creosoted wood exposed at Stavoren, when visited in 1859.

At Nieuwendam, in March, 1859, three pieces each of oak, pine, and red fir, all creosoted at Amsterdam, were exposed in the sea. They were examined in September of the same year. They had been fastened together by cross-pieces of unprepared wood: it was found that the teredo had penetrated, at the juncture of these cross-pieces, even into the creosoted wood, and that sometimes he stopped immediately beneath the surface, at others he penetrated to a depth of several millimetres; in the oak, he worked his way into the interior through those parts of the surface which were not in contact with the unprepared wood.

Experiments with creosote-oil were recommenced in July, 1860, with ten pieces each of oak and red fir, following the plan indicated in paragraph 5; the localities chosen were Nieuwe-Diep and Stavoren; in the latter place the pieces which remained intact the previous year were again placed in the water after their surface had been removed by the adze. Still later, in August, 1861, a further trial was made at these same places with pieces of pine, beech, and poplar, sent to the commission by Mr. Boulton, and prepared at his works in London.

All these pieces were examined toward autumn in 1862, 1863, and 1864; while the unprepared pieces, placed near the others as counter-proofs, were found each year filled with teredos, one could not discover any traces of the teredo in the creosoted pieces except in the oak creosoted at Amsterdam; in cutting these, it was found that the creosote had penetrated them very imperfectly.

A third examination, in 1864, showed that all the pieces prepared by Mr. Boulton, and which had been exposed in the sea since August, 1861, were entirely intact; the most careful examination could not show the slightest trace of the worm, even in the pieces withdrawn from the water in 1862 and 1863, and each time scraped to a depth of several millimetres and again placed in the water. They resisted the attacks of the teredo perfectly.

An equally favorable and decisive result was obtained from the pieces of fir creosoted at Amsterdam. Notwithstanding they had been exposed in the sea since July, 1860, during five consecutive summers, nothing could be discovered which resembled the galleries of the teredo: one of the pieces, at a point where the color of the wood indicated an insufficient penetration of the creosote-oil, showed a very slight worm-eaten appearance; but the absence of the calcareous deposit, and