Amongst wheelwrights the water seasoning is in general favour. It is said that the colour of the white woods is improved by water seasoning, boiling, or steaming. The Venetians place the oak used for gun-carriages in water for two years before it is used, and the timber for sea service two or three years under water. The Turks do not appear to pay any attention to seasoning, for they fell their timber at all times of the year without any regard to the season, and although they grow very good oak, it is used so green and unseasoned that it not only twists, but decays rapidly, as anyone may observe in the houses at Constantinople and other Turkish towns.
Timber is rendered more durable by placing it in a stream of water, saturated with lime, for eight or ten days, and it also makes it less liable to the attack of worms; but it, however, becomes hard after being dried, and is difficult to be worked; and therefore the process should be applied to timber which has been sawn into scantlings, and is ready for use. Mr. William Chapman, in 1812, considered that an immersion of timber in hot limewash in deep ponds, exposing little surface to the air, merited a trial; but in 1816, from experiments he had made, he was of opinion that it had proved injurious to timber.
Evelyn states that green elm, if plunged for a few days in water (especially salt water), obtains an admirable seasoning. According to Society of Arts Trans., 1819, every trace of fungus was eradicated from the ship “Eden,” by its remaining eighteen months under sea water. Salt water is considered good for ship timber, but for timber to be employed in the construction of dwelling-houses, fresh water is better. Pliny notices, as a fact, that certain woods on being dried after immersion in the sea acquire additional density and durability. M. de Lapparent, late Director of the French Navy, considers that timber cannot be seasoned in salt water, but in fresh, or at the most, in brackish water. The condition of the timber which, at the port of Rochefort, is kept in ditches filled with fresh water is in this respect most favourable; that kept at Toulon, Brest, and Lorient, where the water is brackish, is much less so; but to estimate their relative advantages, it would be necessary to test the average density of these waters. It is, however, at Cherbourg that this natural preparation of timber is the most inefficient, as the beds-of sand in which the timber is buried, near the Pool of Tourlaville, contain but a small quantity of water, which, being nearly always stagnant, very quickly exhausts itself, and is very prejudicial.
At the Cologne International Agricultural Exhibition, in 1865, three sleepers were exhibited from the Magdeburg Leipsiger Railway, from the Salt Work Branch, at Stassfurt, laid in 1857. These were moistened by the refuse of the salt which was lost from the load and by the rain. The jury in their Report stated that these sleepers proved nothing, “because every old table on which fish or meat has been salted, proves that a constant moistening with salt water preserves the wood from decay, but as soon as the process of salting is given up, the salted matter is immediately given out, and the timber soon decays. In this case it would have been important to have known that these sleepers, after having been salted, had lain anywhere else than in the Salt Work Branch without getting fresh salt applied, and then to have seen if they would have been as perfect as they are now. They, indeed, prove nothing but the fact that if sleepers be daily sprinkled with salt they will remain sound, but the price paid for this durability might be very considerable.” As the use of salt as a preservative agent will be considered in the next chapter, it will be best to defer the consideration of salt-water seasoning until then.
In India, teak, sál, and blackwood, &c., improve by lying in water, or in the soft black mud of an estuary: there is one exception, viz. heddé, which deteriorates from steeping, and should be carted to its destination.
Evelyn states that he had found a fortnight’s immersion in river water sufficient, and this opinion is held by Silloway, a North American authority; but Dr. Porcher, a South American writer, recommends a six months’ immersion in water, and a six months’ exposure to wind and shade. Vitruvius and Alberti consider that timber should be left immersed in a running stream thirty days.
It is considered that the longer wood has remained under water, the more rapidly it dries; for instance, every one is aware that the firewood brought out of the river is less green and burns better than that brought by waggon or boat.
In 1817, Admiral Count Chateauvieux, a Sardinian naval officer, observed to Mr. McWilliam that it was a custom at the Royal Arsenal, at Genoa, as a preventive against the diseases of timber, to steep it about three years in fresh water immediately after it is felled. Mr. James Dickson, of Gottenburg, timber merchant (member of the firm Peter Dickson and Company, London), many years engaged in the Swedish timber trade, observed in 1835, “If square timber lies in the water two or three years, it rends at the heart, but I should not say it would, perhaps, for the first year; but the exterior part rends soon by exposure to the weather.” In 1818, the Chevalier de Campugano, Secretary of Legation to the Spanish Embassy, stated that in Spain, when timber is felled, it is generally laid in water for a considerable time.
The sap in timber, by reason of the matters which it holds in solution, is denser than pure water; moreover, it is enclosed in fibres or channels permeable at the ends.
Supposing in submerged timber, the surrounding water to be flowing, or at least changing, this water will conclude by occupying, if not altogether, at least in a great degree, the place of the sap, which will have issued forth, carrying with it the fermenting principle with which it is charged. The timber, therefore, which has remained sufficiently long in the water ought to be much less susceptible of fermentation than that seasoned only by the atmosphere. Besides, as pure water evaporates much easier than that which contains certain principles, this timber ought to be seasoned much sooner than the other.