their ships." The use of pitch and copper plating as anti-fouling techniques were attributed to ancient seafaring nations, such as the Phoenicians and Carthaginians (1500- 300BC). Wax, tar and asphaltum have been used since early times. An Aramaic record dating from 412 B.C. tells of a ship's bottom being coated with a mixture of arsenic, oil and sulphur. In Deipnosophistae, Athenaeus described the anti-fouling efforts taken in the construction of the great ship of Hieron of Syracuse (died 467 BC). Before the 18th century, various anti-fouling techniques were used, with three main substances employed: "White stuff", a mixture of train oil (Whale oil), rosin and sulfur; "Black stuff", a mixture of tar and pitch; and "Brown stuff", which was simply sulfur added to Black stuff. In many of these cases, the purpose of these treatments is ambiguous. There is dispute whether many of these treatments were actual anti-fouling techniques, or whether, when they were used in conjunction with lead and wood sheathing, they were simply intended to combat wood-boring shipworms. In 1708, Charles Perry suggested copper sheathing explicitly as an anti-fouling device but the first experiments were not made until 1761 with the sheathing of HMS Alarm, after which the bottoms and sides of several ships' keels and false keels were sheathed with copper plates. The copper performed well in protecting the hull from invasion by worm, and in preventing the growth of weed, for when in contact with water, the copper produced a poisonous film, composed mainly of oxychloride, that deterred these marine creatures. Furthermore, as this film was slightly soluble, it gradually washed away, leaving no way for marine life to attach itself to the ship. From about 1770, the Royal Navy set about coppering the bottoms of the entire fleet and continued to the end of the use of wooden ships. The process was so successful that the term copper-bottomed came to mean something that was highly dependable or risk free. With the rise of iron hulls in the 19th century, copper sheathing could no longer be used due to its galvanic corrosive interaction with iron. Anti-fouling paints were tried, and in 1860, the first practical paint to gain widespread use was introduced in Liverpool and was referred to as "McIness" hot plastic paint. These treatments had a short service life, were expensive, and relatively ineffective by modern standards. By the mid-twentieth century, copper oxide-based paints could