1885.] AUSTRALASIAN FORESTS. 287 



and often presents a coliuiinar trunk of 100 feet without a branch, 

 is much prized for its timber by the shipbuilder, the miner, the 

 railway engineer, and the cabinetmaker. What renders it excep- 

 tionally valuable is that it exudes a gum almost equal to copal, 

 the choicer qualities of which will sometimes command from 

 584 to 730 dollars per ton in the London market. The ruriu 

 or red pine, an ornamental as well as useful timber, some of it 

 resembling rosewood, though of a lighter brown colour, is largely 

 used in the manufacture of furniture. With the Mara, a durable 

 and clean-grained wood, not unlike cedar in appearance, the Maoris 

 made their largest canoes, and almost invariably constructed the 

 palisading of their " pahs." The forest trees of Western Australia 

 claim special attention on account of their useful and valuable 

 properties. Among these may be mentioned the tuart {E^icahjiotus 

 rjom'pliocc'plialcC), an extremely hard, heavy, and close-grained wood, 

 which furnishes the strongest timber known, its transverse strength 

 per square inch being 2*701 as compared with the English oak, 

 which is 2-117, or the Indian teak, which is 2-203. Hence it is 

 extremely valuable for shipbuilding purposes. The karri [Eucalyptus 

 divcrsicolor), also highly prized for its timber, attains to colossal 

 dimensions, sometimes measuring 60 feet in circumference at the 

 base, while its tall and shapely trunk rises to the height of 300 

 feet without a single limb. The jarri {Eucalyptus marginata), 

 which resists successfully the attacks of both the white ant and 

 the Teredo navalis, is unsurpassed for the durability of its timber. 

 Specimens of jarrah piles, after being exposed between wind and 

 water for over forty years, are still found to be in an almost perfect 

 state of preservation. According to the Director of the Botanical 

 Gardens at Sydney, no country has been favoured by nature with 

 a greater variety and abundance of trees yielding strong, beautiful, 

 and durable timbers, than the colony of New South Wales. Its 

 magnificent forests contain woods valuable alike to the cabinet- 

 maker and the shipbuilder, including such timbers as the different 

 species of the Eiicalyptus, the red cedar, turpentine, rosewood, moun- 

 tain ash, and tulip-wood, most of which are beautiful in grain, rich 

 in colour, and susceptible of a high polish. Queensland is richly 

 endowed with immense tracts of forest lands, furnishing large 

 quantities of valuable timber, and indirectly supplying the soil with 

 an abundance of rain. The enormous fig trees and gigantic 

 Eucalypti tower aloft and spread out their great arms, festooned 

 with vines and flowering parasites, which throw themselves over 

 every spreading branch, and deck it with their varied and brilliant 

 colours ; the tall pine trees, the cedar, the myrtle, the rosewood, and 

 tamarind trees are also forest represeutatives. 



