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Doc. 205.] 17
SWEDENBORG’S TRAVELS IN 1733.
On the way I perused a small treatise by Putoneus,* on
a kind of worms of Friesland and Northland, where I noted
what follows :
These worms are only found in Friesland and Northland,
where the ships and the piles driven into the dikes are gradually
perforated and consumed by them. This was first observed
in 1732 in some beams, which had been floating upon the
water , when cast ashore by the waves. Pine wood is
chiefly attacked, but also occasionally oak. The number of
worms that appear is sometimes larger, sometimes smaller;
perhaps according to the differing temperature, as is the case
with some insects, and also with mice, which are more abund
ant one year than another. In the year 1666, the inhabitants
of Amsterdam complained, that their ships, on the return
voyage from India, were attacked and perforated by worms,
wherefore they began to fortify the ribs and coverings of their
ships with large-headed nails ; which resulted in their ships
.
becoming much more durable than those of the English. The
Portuguese, however, char the outer surface of their ships.
In the record of his travels Dampier describes most accurate
ly this kind of worms, which are very much like those of
Friesland. There are three species of them of which drawings
are given. It has been observed that those which originate
in salt water, perish in fresh water; so that a ship which
has become infested with them in salt water , is relieved
from them in fresh water. Messrs. Massuet and Wallisnerius
were the first to describe these worms, which are slender
towards the tail, broader towards the head , and of a
yellowish white colour. A part of their head is protected by
a hard stony or bony mass, which is round and pointed at
the end, so as to resemble the drills with which holes are
bored into stone. The head is thus covered and by means
of this mass the boring is accomplished ; a part of the body
also towards the tail is covered with a harder substance ; so
that they can brace themselves up and thus bore better. From
this hard matter of the tail the extremity, which is soft and
* Putoneus, Historische und physicalische Beschreibung einer Art höchst
schädlicher Seewürmer, Leipzig, 1733.
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