But after a while the earthenware pipes were displaced and broken, the
process was given up, and Galveston bridge is now creosoted.
In 1868 Mr. S. Beer patented a process for preserving wood by simply
washing out the sap from its cells. Having ascertained that borax is a
solvent for sap, he prepared a number of specimens by boiling them in a
solution of borax. For small specimens, this answered well, and a
signboard treated in that way (experiment No. 13) was preserved a long
time; but when applied to large timber, the process was found very
tedious and slow, and no headway has been made in introducing it.
Experiment No. 14 was brought about by accident. Some years age it was
discovered that there was a strip of road in the track of the Union
Pacific Railroad, in Wyoming Territory, about ten miles in length, where
the ties do not decay at all. The Chief Engineer, Mr. Blinkinsderfer,
kindly took up a cotton wood tie in 1882, which had been laid in 1868,
and sent a, piece of it to the committee. It is as sound and a good deal
harder than when first laid, 14 years before, while on some other parts
of the road cottonwood ties perish in two or five years.
The character of the soil where these results have been observed is
light and soapy, and Mr. E. Dickinson, Superintendent of the Laramie
Division, furnishes the following analysis:
Sodium chloride 10.
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