Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-06-13
The TeredO.

Everybody knows that, in our har-
bors, there is a small worm which
causes the destruction of thousands
of dollars worth of piles every year,
but until quite recently the nature
and habits of this little animal were
very indefinitely understood. 1t was
once supposed that the teredo was,
exclusively, an inhabtant of tropical
seas, and to have been transported
into colder climates after having
bored its way into the sides of ships
while lying in those waters. But it
has recently been discovered that a
worm of essentially similar char
acteristics, existed in m ote geolog-
ical ages in high northern ATTITUDES.
Worm eaten fossil woods have been
exhumed, in many localities, present
ing an appearance exactly like what
a piece of modern honey coined pile
would assume were it changed by
chemical means into stone. The
trunk of tree was lately found
twelve feet below the present sur
face of the ground, at Belfast, i'm
bedded in stratum which proved it
to belong to an age long prior to the
date of the earliest navigation. A
careful examination of pieces of this
tree revealed the fact that it had
been eaten through and through by
the teredo. The true salt water
species, termed, ieredo naralis, is
never found in fresh water lakes,
nor in rivers beyond the reach of
the tide, fact clearly proven by
the lasting qualities of piles that are
driven above the reach of the flood
tides, and the short life of those,
made of the same kind of timber,
driven at the mouth of the same riv-
err. It is we'll known that the raw
ages of the modern teredo are now
quite as destructive along the north
ern coast of Europe and America as
in the harbors of the equatorial re-
gions. AS commerce gradually ex-
tends its boundaries, necessitating
the opening of harbors, and the
building of new wharves in all parts
of the world, the necessities of the
case has led naturalists to make ex-
tended examinations of the little
creature, and to determine by ex-
pertinent, as far as possible, its hab-
it's and the methods of its operations
The worm is so small when it first
attacks the wood that it is quite in
visible without the aid of magnify
ing glass, and yet so active is it at
this early stage, that it has been
known to penetrate the solid timber
to the depth of about one-eighth of
an inch in the course of week. In
making it's first perforation into q
stick of timber the animal cuts across
the grain until it has we'll entered
the solid wood and proceeds length
wise of the pile, constantly charging
the bore, while its body rapidly in
creases in size. The worm has been
found large enough to fill bore OF
one-third:of an inch in diameter, and
at this stage of its life, it is able to
riddle large pile in short time.
The teredo seems to derive its food
entirely from the water, which finds,
at the pleasure of the borer, q ready
access through the whole extent of
the perforations.
There is another species of timber
worm, known among naturalists as
as the hmnoria terebra,s, much small
er than the teredo, though quite as de-
structive, and far more difficult to deal
with; since a pile may be completely
riddled by it while the outer surface
of the stick shows no signs of its
ravages.
A third wood destroyer seems to
have lately made its appearance in
Pacific coast waters, andis capable of
doing an enormous amount of dam
to unprotected piling. This de-
structive agent is of the species
tenebrans, but crustaceous. In size,
it is between the two species already
mentioned, and, in some respects, is
most to be dreaded of all. Its method
of procedure is to enter the pile just
/ above the mud, and thus, it can do a
great deal of damage before its pres
| ences ia known. This species is sup-