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.