Linnæus long ago designated the ship-worm as the calamitas navium, and although perhaps the expression as applied to ships is somewhat far-fetched—save in the case of broken-down hulks—and utterly inapplicable in this age of iron, there can be little doubt that regarded relatively to wooden piles, piers, and like erections, the ship-worm is unquestionably a calamity personified. So, at anyrate, thought the Dutch in the years 1731-32, when the teredo began to pay attentions of too exclusive a nature to the wooden piles which supported the great earth-works or ‘dikes’ that keep the sea from claiming the United Provinces as its own. A Dutchman has been well said to pay great attention to two things which are euphoniously and shortly expressed by the words ‘dams’ and ‘drams.’ The former keep the sea from invading his territory, and the latter aid in protecting him personally from the effects of the perennial damp amidst which he exists. The ship-worm in the years just mentioned caused terror to prevail through the length and breadth of the Netherlands, through its appearance in large numbers in the wooden piles of the dams or dikes. On these piles the fortunes of Holland may be said to depend; and the foundations of the Dutch empire might therefore be regarded, correctly enough, as having been sapped and threatened by an envious enemy in the shape of a mollusc, and one belonging to by no means the highest group of that division of animals. The alarm spread fast through the Netherlands, and the government was not slow to appreciate the danger, or to offer a reward of large amount for the discovery of any plan which would successfully stay the progress of such dreaded invaders.
Inventors, it might be remarked, are not slow, as a rule, to accept invitations of such generous nature; and if report speaks truly, the office of discriminating between the worthless and feasible projects which were submitted to the Dutch nation on the occasion referred to, could not have proved either an easy or enviable one. Then came the chemists with lotions innumerable, and the inventors of varnishes, paints, and poisons were in a state of hopeful anxiety. But none of these preparations was found to fulfil the required conditions, and the only project which appeared to savour of feasibility was one which was rejected on account of its impracticable nature—namely that of picking the teredos from their burrows like whelks from their shells. The kingdom of Holland thus appeared in a fair way of being undermined by an enemy of infinitely greater power and one less capable of being successfully resisted than the Grand Turk, who once upon a time declared his intention of exterminating the nation with an army whose only weapons were spades and shovels. But after a period of unrestricted labour, the ship-worm ‘turned tail’ on the Netherlands, and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving only a few stragglers to mark the vantage-ground.
Though Britain has not suffered from teredo-epidemics in the same measure as Holland, there can be little doubt that the ravages of this mollusc on the timber of our piers and dockyards, cost us a large sum annually. The stoutest oak is riddled through with the same ease displayed in perforating the softer pine; and in some of our seaport towns, especially on the southern coasts, the yearly estimates for repairs of damage done by the ship-worm form no inconsiderable item in the government or local expenditure as the case may be. The most effectual plan for the repression of the teredo and for the prevention of its work of destruction appears to be that of protecting the exposed timber by driving therein short nails with very broad heads. These nails form a kind of armour-casing which is rendered more effective through the chemical action of the water in producing rust.
Some molluscs, near neighbours of the teredo, and which burrow for the most part into stone, but occasionally perforate wood, are those belonging to the Piddock-family—the genera Pholas and Saxicava of the naturalist—celebrated by Pliny of old as phosphorescent animals. The Saxicavæ have somewhat elongated shells, by means of which they burrow in rocks and lie ensconced in their dwelling-places, and whose perforated rock-homes are eagerly sought after by all who delight in forming rockeries in their gardens. These molluscs have ere now caused fears for the safety of Plymouth breakwater, through the persistence with which they excavated their burrows into the substance of the stones. And as has been well pointed out, the destructive action of these molluscs may pave the way for an inroad of the sea; a riddled mass of rock or stone being rendered through their attack liable to disintegration from the action of the waves.
A final example of an animal enemy of man which as regards size is to be deemed insignificant when compared with the teredo, but which nevertheless adds by its destructive work to our annual expenditure, is the little crustacean known as the Limnoria terebrans, or popularly as the wood-boring shrimp or ‘gribble.’ This animal belongs to the group including the familiar ‘Slaters’ or ‘Wood-lice,’ found under stones and in damp situations, and by means of its powerful jaws burrows deeply into wood of all kinds. Occasionally, the ship-worm and gribble have been found at work in the same locality and have committed ravages of great extent; the latter, on account of its small size, being more difficult of detection and eradication than its molluscan neighbour.
The consideration of a subject such as the present, it may lastly be remarked, possesses a phase not without some degree of consolation to minds which, if incapable of seeing ‘good in everything,’ may nevertheless believe in the adjustment and counterbalancing of most of Nature’s operations. The repression of animal life by parasites may in one sense prove a gain to nature at large, viewed from a Malthusian stand-point, although humanly considered, there may be differences of opinion regarding the applicability of the opinion to the case of man. But if the ravages of the teredo and its neighbours on the works of man are to be considered as a veritable affliction, we must not fail to think also of the service these animals render in clearing the ocean of vast masses of drift-wood, which, liberated from the mouths of all the great rivers of the world, would speedily accumulate to check navigation and impede commerce in many quarters of the world. The genius of Brunel, which discerned in the manner of the ship-worm’s burrowing the true method of excavating the tunnel associated with his name, and which thus improved engineering science by a happy thought and observation, may also be regarded as bearing testimony to the consoling fact that there exist few evils which are entirely unmixed with good.
MY JOURNEY TO BRIGHTON.
A few years ago, in the second week of September, I found myself, very much against my inclination, still inhaling the dusty atmosphere of my London chambers, Lincoln’s Inn. I was anxious that the suit upon which I was engaged should be ready for the commencement of the November term; it was unusually intricate; the client a man of high rank and importance, or I should not have allowed it to detain me in town after the 12th of August, at which date all the ordinary temptations had assailed me and had been resisted; and now having relinquished my favourite recreations, both grouse and partridge shooting, all my friends dispersed far and wide, and no companion left in town with whom I cared to spend the remaining weeks of the long vacation, I was quite at a loss whither to betake myself for a change, so necessary to the exhausted legal brain at that period of the year. I turned over the leaves of my Bradshaw in the hope of gaining an idea, but its maddening pages left me more unsettled than ever. At last I suddenly resolved to run down to Brighton by the afternoon express, which I found would just give me time to go home for a portmanteau and make the few necessary arrangements for a short absence; one thing only being clear to my mind, that I should not stay long away.
The transit from Lincoln’s Inn to Eaton Place, where as a bachelor I still resided with my mother, was rapidly accomplished; and if I had not been unexpectedly detained at home, I should have reached Victoria in comfortable time; as it was, my hansom only drove into the station as the bell was ringing for the train to start, and I hastily jumped into the first carriage in which I could find room, as the train moved on. It proved to be a second-class.