Excerpt from The Ferrum Timber Company for the United States of America: Organized for the Preservation of Timber From Decay and From the Ravages of the Marine Worm

Hamar asserts that not only will his process preserve timber from decay for fifteen to twenty five years, or for an indefinite period, but will increase the strength and hardness of the timber to such a degree as will actually obliterate the difference of durability between the hard and the soft woods. As proof of this he refers to the sleepers of the Austrian and Hungarian railways, of soft wood prepared by his process more than ten years ago, which have answered every requirement and withstood every test as well as, Oak or any other kind of hard wood might have done.

For the preservation of wood from rottenness it is first of all necessary to change its component parts by expelling those that are detrimental and substituting preservatives in their stead. Woody fibre itself will resist putrefaction for a considerable length of time, but the sap is the substance which sooner or later generates rottenness. Hamar's process first expels the sap completely, and next replaces it by the Chemical Compound for preservation.

The expulsion of the sap, and the introduction of the chemicals, is produced by a simple and inexpensive appliance of hydrostatic and atmospheric pressure, which acts almost instantaneously throughout the pores of the whole timber subjected to the process. The chemicals vary according to circumstances and the different kinds of timber to be preserved.

For a more complete understanding of the mode of preparing timber by this and other processes, some knowledge of the composition and manner of growth of wood, becomes important.

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