Lighthouse (of which he was engineer), between 1814 and 1843, found that greenheart wood, beef wood, and bullet tree were not perforated by the _Teredo navalis_, and teak but slightly so. Later experiments show that the “jarrah” of the East, also, is not attacked. Lignum vitæ is said to be exempt. The cost of these woods prevents their general use. In 1810, Stevenson first noticed the _teredo_ in piles, and specimens of the creatures in wood were sent to Dr. Leach, of the British Museum, in 1811, who examined them, and noticed their peculiarities. Stevenson, settled on Bell Rock during many years (like a new Robinson Crusoe), was enabled to watch the injuries done to the piles by the _teredo_. With piles which had been subjected to Kyan’s process before immersion, the wood was attacked at the end of the twenty-eighth month, and was entirely destroyed in the seventh month of the fifth year. With Payne’s, it lasted a year longer. We can give the names of those who have given much time and attention to this subject. At the bottom of this page a list of works of reference[16] will be found useful. Messrs. Stevenson (engineer of Bell Rock Lighthouse), Harting (Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Pays-Bas), de Quatrafages, Deshayes, Caillaut, Hancock, Dagneau, de Gemini, Kater, Crepin (Engineer-in-Chief, of Belgium), and A. Forestier (Engineer-in-Chief of the Bridges, &c., of France). The termite, or white ant, is the most destructive insect to timber on land, whilst the teredo reigns supreme of sea worms in the sea. The former we shall treat of in our next chapter, the latter we propose considering at some length in this. The marine worm, of which there are accounts in all parts of the world, has been known, by its effects, for hundreds of years; indeed, Ovid spoke of it nineteen hundred years ago, and it is even mentioned by Homer. Fossil _terredines_ of great antiquity have been found near Southend; also pieces of petrified wood from the greensand, near Lyme and Sidmouth, bored by ancient species of _teredo_; also from Bath, and from Doulting, near Shepton Mallet, specimens of oolite, with petrified corallines in it, pierced by boring shells. It is said that this worm is a native of India, and that it was introduced to Holland some 200 years ago, from whence it has spread through the ports of northern Europe.