BIRKBECK Dr et al - A Lecture on the Preservation of Timber by Kyan's Patent for Preventing Dry Rot, Delivered by... [Bound together with] Copy of The Report From the Committee Appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Investigate Mr Kyan's Patent for the Prevention of Dry Rot in Timber, etc, with Extracts from the Minutes of Evidence; A Lecture on The Dry Rot and on the Most Effectual Means of Preventing It, Delivered Before the Institute of British Architects, April 3, 1837 by Robert Dickson

London, John Weale; London, J&C Adlard; London, J&C Adlard 1834; (1835) 1837; 1837 48pp, 3 plates [Birkbeck]; 46pp [Lords Commissioners Report]; 50pp [Dickson] 21x14, maroon cloth, glt text spine. Very light foxing on some pages, otherwise very good copies indeed in relatively recent binding, very well done. Dry rot was a perennial concern for the Royal Navy as well as builders, and Kyan had patented a new method of treating timbers with bichloride of mercury to prevent it. These various lectures and hearings were very positive about the results, but longer experience discovered problems with the costs and efficacy of the method - not least that any metal fixings attached to the timber tended to dissolve - and by the 1850s it was overtaken by new preservation techniques like creosoting.

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