Much yet remains to be done with regard to uninflammable wood for buildings: we think the matter should be dealt with (with reference to joists, floor boards, partitions, doors, staircases, roof timbers, &c.) by a new Buildings Act of Parliament. Stone and iron will not burn, but they are not fire-resisting: brick, artificial stone, and incombustible wood will give us all we desire; the details may be difficult of arrangement, but builders would comply with them if they were imperatively required. At present our houses are formed of brick walls, every room being separated vertically and horizontally from the adjoining rooms by combustible wooden walls. A street built up of fire-proof buildings would be a novelty. The whole subject requires to be dealt with thoroughly, for while we have combustible wooden floors, partitions, &c., we cannot at the same time have a fire-proof building. We have not been able to spare the space, or else we should have devoted a long chapter to this subject; a superficial consideration (such as alum and water) would have been practically useless. In conclusion, we can only summarize our remarks on the cause of dry rot, by saying, “Season and ventilate,” in every case: as to the cure, that is not so easy to deal with. If the reader has ever had a decayed tooth aching, a friend has probably said, “Have it out;” and we say, wherever there is a piece of timber decayed in a building which can be removed, “Have it out, and stop up with new;” and in so advising we are merely following the advice to be found in a good old volume, which has never yet been equalled, and which says: “And, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall; … Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city: And he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place: And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaister the house.”--_Leviticus_ xiv. 37, 40, 41, and 42. This course will not, however, suit every case, for when the rot has spread in many directions, the best and cheapest course is to consult some professional man, well versed in the peculiarities of dry rot, before determining upon any remedy, for we have shown in the course of this work that the disease may arise from various causes; and it is not a difficult matter to select the wrong remedy, and thus increase the disease.