Mr. John Stephen Langton’s method of seasoning by extraction of the sap was patented in 1825, but is now almost wholly discontinued. It consists in letting the timber into vertical iron cylinders, standing in a cistern of water, closing the cylinders at top; and the water being heated, and steam used to produce a partial vacuum, the sap relieved from the atmospheric pressure oozes from the wood, and being converted into vapour, passes off through a pipe provided for the purpose. The time required is about ten weeks, and the cost is about ten shillings per load; but the sap is wholly extracted, and the timber is said to be fit and ready for any purpose; the diminution of weight is, with a little more shrinkage, similar to that in seasoning by the common natural process.[6] Mr. Barlow’s patent provided for exhausting the air from one end of the log while one or more atmospheres press upon the other end. This artificial aerial circulation through the wood is prolonged at pleasure. However excellent in theory, this process is not practicable. In October, 1844, M. Tissier proposed to place wood in a close vessel, and subject it to a current of hot dry air; and in 1847, Mr. Miller proposed to inject hot air through beams of wood to drive out the sap. In 1851, M. Meyer d’Uslaw proposed to first dilate the pores of the wood with steam, and then place it in a hermetically closed chamber, and make a vacuum there. The following system of preparing timber for the Navy was, not many years since, adopted in South Russia. A full account of the practice will be found in Oliphant’s ‘Russian Shores of the Black Sea,’ 1853. The only name we can give it is “‘SEASONING’ BY BRIBES.” A certain quantity of well-seasoned oak being required, Government issues tenders for the supply of the requisite amount. A number of contractors submit their tenders to a board appointed for the purpose of receiving them, who are regulated in the choice of a contractor not by the amount of his tender, but of his bribe. The _fortunate_ individual selected immediately sub-contracts upon a somewhat similar principle. Arranging to be supplied with the timber for half the amount of his tender, the sub-contractor carries on the game, and perhaps the eighth link in this contracting chain is the man who, for an absurdly low figure, undertakes to produce the _seasoned_ wood. His agents in the central provinces accordingly float a quantity of green pines and firs down the Dnieper and Bog to Nicholaeff, which are duly handed up to the head contractor, each man pocketing the difference between his contract and that of his neighbour. When the wood is produced before the board appointed to inspect it, another bribe _seasons_ it; and the Government, after paying the price of well-seasoned oak, is surprised that the 120-gun ship, which it has been built of it, is unfit for service in five years. “Mark but my fall, and that that ruin’d me, Corruption.”--SHAKSPEARE.