The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-09-22 00:00:00

DRY ROI' IN TIMBER.

( From the Liverpool liteekZy Magazine.)
Very few persons have any tolerable conception of the luad-
tity of timber required fur the construction of the larger classes
of vessels, and, consequently, of the loss' that arises from the
spread of dry hot, which, when once commenced, can rarely
ever be eradicated. A first-rate man of war demands nearly
6000 loads; a quantity sufficient to cover a road fifty feet wide
(rather more than the width of Bold-street) with timber, ono
foot iu depth, for more than a mile and a furlong in length.
Hence it is tint surprising that, according to the opinion of the
best judges, the annual destruction of timber in the royal navy
alone should be not under 50,000 loads, amounting, at £8 per
load, the price usually paid for the best selected timber, to
£40,000 per annum, independent of workmanship ; and, if to
this be added the destruction of the government wurkstiops and
other erections on shore, it is no extravagant arithmetic to say,
that in the public expenditure of this nation, certainly not less
than a million and a half have been annually sacrificed, froth'
the delayed adoption of Kyan's preventive.
Of particular instances of this destruction, it may be sufficient
to state, that the Queen Charlotte, of 120 guns, within one year
after she had been launched, was found to be rotten from the
water line upwards, and, in many places, below it; and, having
been built of various sorts of timber, proved to be covered with
as many different species of boletus. The Spencer cost, for re-
pairs of /lull, masts, and yards, nearly £IZ,(XX). The Tremen-
dous, more than I:135m0, and the Victory, Nelson's ship, in
the very first year, 1800, was repaired at Chatham, and her re.
pairs did not terminate till 180.3, when the sum expended, on the
above account, exceeded £96.000. She was under repairs again
in 1814, 1815, and 1816, when she cost, for the same, more than
£47,000, making the total of the expense for the replacement of
her timbers only, within fifteen years, above .£113,000; the origi-
nal cost of a ship of this class being estimated, in time of was,
at less than £95,000.*

The destruction of private vessels from this disease is not a
proper subject of public remark, or else many instances might
be given of ships of this port that are full well known to have
cost very little less, in proportion, to pot them in a sailing state.
The right of doing what one will with one's own might suf-
ficiently justify the building of a merchant vessel with any sort
of timber, were it not but too certain that many an apparently
fine ship and hardy crew have beets lost from the attacks of the
silent enemy from within, which have consigned them todestruc-
tion; When all :vas calm without;—and how pernicious the foul
miasma of decaying timber must be to the health of the sailorS,
any one can judge, from the noxious effluvia, arising from the
same cause, in must of our cellars and underground apartments.
The destruction by dry rot in public and private buildings
does not require us to have recourse for proof to the wholesale
havoc it has committed on the palaces, churches, institutions,
and whole streets of the metropolis; the "good old town" has
conic in for its full share, of which we have many public in-
stances, besides the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the
Lunatic Asylum.t
Judging, then, from these statements of the whole of the ope-
ration of this pest in the united kinedom, the subject cannot be
deemed otherwise than of "fully sufficient importance," to use •
the words of Professor Parrady, in a lecture he delivered on thu
efficacy of Kyan's preventive, " to justify inquiry into anv
cess which professes to effect these changes, and to confer so
much consequent benefit on mankind. The object is not, as in
some instances, the ready destruction of life and property, btit •
it consists of u benefit connected with more social and pleasant
feelings, and touching the permanent and mutual interests of
mankind." '

* At the close of the last war forty vessels of war were hastily '
built, and their average duration was not above tour years.
They were known in the navy by the name of the. Forty Thieves. •
These banditti were literally broken up, but who can say how
many smaller gangs, and separate plunderers, have taken their ,
place
t The decay of the timber in this establishment was first oh-'
served by one Of the patients, who, with the mining that often'
forms a characteristic of the malady, put up some of the decayed
wood in paper, and presented it to the governor, Slr. Owen, as
snuff : this led to an inquity whence it was obtained, and,,con-
sequently, to a discovery of the mischief.

Ikl,:s. DEGO, soLk ScRVIVING St,TLIt or BURNS.—Tho ad.
miters of Burns cannot fail In lea' n with regret that his sister is
now in a state of great affliction and destitution. Her !mahout!'
was killed by a tall from his horse, leaving his widow and two
daughters totally unprovided for, and now ib circumstances of
distress. These facts are vouched by the minister of the parish
of Trancnt, near Edinburgh, who also thentiona that Mrs. Berg
and her daughters reside in his parish, and are
.most deserving
persons.
The tate Duke of Newcastle kept the most princely table, and
the greatest number of doutestit s of any nobleman in the three
kingdoms; ism would he suffer any our of the:D.(lllrings, series •
of years, to dispose of any part of theirold liveries, but made
this usual perquisite up to them by doirceurt ; and the .cast-off -
clothes were carefully deposited in a large store room appropri-
ated to that purpose, where they remained until after his grace's
decease, when they were sold; at which time the number of
suits was so great that, for a year or two after, scaicely a carter,
coachman, &amen, or porter in London, kit wore the New-
castle livery. "His grace is known repeatedly to ,have ,had
.thirty legs of mutton cut up in one day, meiely..Vtake,out jay
, eiew, to form cite dish at,his table.