Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/90

70 affording a strong presumption that they were both built on the same principles.

"The 'Hawke' sloop was built in 1793, one half of timber barked in the spring and felled in the winter, and the other half of timber felled at the usual time in spring. Ten years later she was in such a general state of decay that she was taken to pieces, no difference being then observable in the condition of her several timbers."

"At first view," Mr. Bowden observes, "this experiment appears to decide the fate of the system; but it must be remarked that the timber was barked standing in the spring of 1787, and not felled until the autumn of 1790, a period of three and a half years; and further, that if we were to inquire into the probable duration of such timber, we might discover, perhaps, that it is in an inverse ratio to the time the trees may stand after being barked; and therefore, this ship was in precisely the same state at the end of ten years as we might reasonably have expected."