Larch has been used in the building-yards of the Tay for 20 years back; and there is now afloat several thousand tons of shipping constructed of it. The Athole Frigate built of it nearly 12 years ago, the Larch, a fine brig built by the Duke of Athole several years earlier, and many other vessels built more recently, prove that larch is as valuable for naval purposes as the most sanguine had anticipated. The first instance we have heard of British larch being used in this manner, was in a sloop repaired with it about 22 years back. The person to whom it had belonged, and who had sailed it himself, stated to us immediately after its loss, that this sloop had been built of oak about 36 years before; that at 18 years {100} old her upper timbers were so much decayed as to require renewal, which was done with larch; that 18 years after this repair this sloop went to pieces on the remains of the pier of Methel, Fifeshire, and the top timbers and second foot-hooks of larch were washed ashore as tough and sound as when first put into the vessel, not one spot of decay appearing, they having assumed the blue dark colour which some timber acquires in moist situations, when it may be stiled _cured_; being either no longer liable to the putrid change constituting dry rot, or which forms timber into a proper soil for the growth of dry rot; or, from this blueness caused by the union of the tannin with iron acting as a poison on vegetation: this blueness, resulting from some alteration in the balance of affinities, occurs chiefly in timber containing much of the tannin principle, in which larch abounds. The owner of a larch brig who had employed her for several years on tropical voyages, also assures us that the timber will wear well in any climate, and that he would prefer larch to any other kind of wood, especially for small vessels; he also states that the deck of this brig, composed of larch plank, stood the tropical heat well, and that it did not warp or shrink as was apprehended.