Wood preservation preservation reaching back to ancient Greece during Alexander the Great's rule, where bridge wood was soaked in olive oil. The Romans protected their ship hulls by brushing the wood with tar. During the Industrial Revolution wood preservation became a cornerstone of the wood processing industry. Inventors and scientists such as Bethell, Boucherie, Burnett and Kyan made historic developments in wood preservation, with the preservative solutions and processes. Commercial pressure treatment began in the latter half of the 19th century with the protection of railroad cross-ties using creosote. Treated wood was used primarily for industrial, agricultural, and utility applications, where it
Cedar oil was laid in natrum or natron—a fixed alkali—for the prescribed period, after which the cedarwood oil, which had dissolved the soft organs, was released; and the body, its flesh dissolved by the natron, was reduced to preserved skin and bones. Until the development of synthetic immersion oil in the 1940s, cedarwood oil was widely used for the oil immersion objective in light microscopy. It is still sometimes also used to clarify emeralds. Cedar leaf oil from "Cedrus atlantica" does not contain thujone. Cedarwood oil is a mixture of organic compounds considered generally safe by the FDA as a food additive