SAVING PILES FROM TEREDO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8814, 1 March 1892, Page 3

SAVING PILES FROM TEREDO.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—A few years ago I wrote to the Harbour Board stating I had invented a new method of preventing wood piles from being destroyed by the teredo, or worm, and asked the Board's permission to drive or fix one, as a sample or test. 1 received a reply, stating I could do so at my own expense, and in the position that the Board's Engineer should point out to me. Now, Mr. Editor, I had good reason to believe that the Engineer would not be favomoble to the above proposal of mine, as I had just defeated him in the .Supreme Court in a case against the Harbour Board, but I thought if I refused the Board's proposal it would be thought I wanted to pick a position, or that I was afraid to have a position selected for me to test my invention, so that I wrote to the Board accepting their terms. The Board s Foreman of Works, under instructions from the Engineer, gave me the directions where to drive, the north west corner of the Railway Wharf, facing north. On Wednesday, 2lst July, 1886, I started work, being supplied with a pile, I think, 40 feet long, and finished my job on the following Saturday at two o'clock. But, sir, before starting I was told my plan was impracticable; others remarked I was a fool for my pains. I have had good cause since to think the latter remark was correct. But to proceed, on the Friday while the work was in hand 1 was visited by Mr. McGregor, Mr. Taylor, Captain Burgess, and Mr. La Roche, who saw the modus. I may say in passing that both Cautaiu Burgess and Mr. Taylor remarked what folly it was to place the pile in such an exposed position. Well, sir, the pile is driven at any rate, but what follows. A snort sime afterwards I am am informed that a portion of the work is carried away by a vessel running against it. But what vessel, Mr. Editor, did the damage? All, there is the rub ! Well, sir, I saw that pile to day, Saturday, at low water, and I maintain that after a lapse of nearly six years' test it has proved beyond doubt, unless to those that will not accept the fact, that I have been successful in all that I professed to do, viz., to protect wood piles from destruction. But Ido more. I leave con Crete pillar (any diameter you wish) in place of a wooden pile. Will I be believed when I state that 1 could fix to those half-rotten piles now under the wharf and leave when finished a substantial concrete pillar of say four feet diameter, at approximately the cost of drawing the old pile and replacing it with a new wooden one. But such, sir, is my firm belief, and I have executed some awkward jobs in Auckland, and I am not beat vet if I get the show. Nil desperandum! Men come and go, and even engineers retire, and still our Waitemata ebbs and flows.l am, &c., R. Jenkinson, February 28, 1892. Builder.