The durability of timber is almost incredible. The following are a few examples for illustration, being vouched for by Buffon, Du Hamel, Rondelet, and others: The piles of a bridge built by Trajan, after having been driven more than sixteen hundred years, were found to be petrified four inches; the rest of the wood being in its ordinary condition.

The elm-piles under the piers of London Bridge have been in use more than seven hundred years, and are not yet materially decayed.

Beneath the foundation of Savoy Place, London, oak, elm, beach, and chestnut piles and planks were found in a state of perfect preservation, after having been there for six hundred and fifty years.

While taking down the old walls of Tunbridge Castle, Kent, there was found, in the middle of a thick stone wall, a timber-curb, which had been enclosed for seven hundred years.

Some timbers of an old bridge were discovered, while digging for the foundations of a house at Dit-ton Park, Windsor, which ancient records incline us to believe were placed there prior to the year 1396.

The durability of timber out of the ground is even greater still. The roof of the basilica of St. Paul, at Rome, was framed in the year 816; and now, after more than a thousand years, it is still sound: and the original cypress-wood doors of the same building, after being in use more than six hundred years, were, when replaced by others of brass, perfectly free from rot or decay; the wood retaining its original odor. The timber-dome of St. Mark, at Venice, is still good, though more than eight hundred and fifty years old. The roof of the Jacobin Convent at Paris, which is of fir, was executed more than four hundred and fifty years ago.

The age of our country's settlement does not enable us to refer to examples of like antiquity; but no good reason appears to exist why timber may not be as durable in America as in Europe. Many old white-pine cornices here exist, which, having been kept properly painted, have been exposed to the storms of more than a hundred and fifty years. The wood is still sound, and the arrises are as good as when they were made; while freestone, in the same neighborhoods, has decayed badly in less than fifty years.