1886.] MISCELLANEOUS. G57 



maintained its price of 20s. per 100 sui^erficial feet, quoted fifteen 

 years ago, although almost every other hardwood has decreased in 

 price since then, especially during the last two or three years, the 

 average retail price in Sydney of most of the hardwood being about 

 15s. The whole seaboard of Xew South Wales, from Cape Howe 

 to the Kichmond Eiver, contains ridges of this splendid wood. 

 Large shipments of it are sent from the Clarence and Pdchmond 

 districts to Xew Zealand and to Melbourne, for bridge-baildiuf, and 

 more especially for wharves, jetties, piles, and girders. There is 

 some fine Ironbark country, too, on the Clyde, fi'oni which district 

 a great deal was formerly shipped to Xew Zealand direct. Con- 

 sidering the great demand for it, the long distance it has to be 

 drawn to the water licfore it can be sliipped, and considering, too, 

 its splendid properties, the price, large though it seems in comparison 

 with that paid for other timber, can hardly be called extravagantly 

 high. 



Mechanism of a Thee. — A tree (and I beg my readers to follow 

 this attempt at explanation closely — all depends upon it) receives 

 its nourishment from the roots. These correspond to the mouth in 

 the human frame. X^'ow, as in the human frame the nourishment 

 received is, after being supplied to the blood, exposed to the opera- 

 tion of air in the lungs before it is fit to give material to the body, 

 so in a tree, the nourishment taken in at these tree mouths, the 

 roots, passes to tlie lungs of the tree, and there, by contact with 

 the air, is rendered fit to supply fresh material to the tree. These 

 tree luugs are the leaves. This operation is effected by the passage 

 upward from the soil around the roots, through the trunk, the 

 branches, and every twig of the tree to the leaves, of a large 

 quantity of water, containing in solution the nutriment for the tree. 

 Arrived at the leaves, a process takes place which sepai'ates, by 

 means of contact with the air, most of the water the roots had 

 taken in, from the valuable nutriment, and throws off, in vapour, 

 the surplus water into the air. At this time certain constituent 

 portions of the air are utilized and mingled with the nourishment 

 retained. This is all, now a small portion in comparison with what 

 had arisen from the roots, yet retaining enough water to serve as a 

 vehicle back, returned toward the roots, depositing in its way, in 

 leaf, bark, and root, what is needed there for the growth of the tree. 

 In these they undergo, especially in the bark, further fitting and 

 digesting processes before they assimilate with the substance of tlie 

 tree. The water which was retained to carry them down, being no 

 longer needed, passes out at the roots. Of the extent of the pro- 

 vision made for evaporation by the leaves, some idea may be formed 

 from a consideration of the number of stomata or stomates to be 



