24 PRESENT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF 



wliicU we all intend to keep, inviolate from the tread o£ 

 any invader. 



To ^'ive you some idea of the maii;nitude of this 

 work, only as far as the timber required in its construc- 

 tion is concerned, I give you the quantities which can be 

 regarded as the minimum required before it is com- 

 pleted : — Hardwoods, principally greenheart and rock- 

 elm, 25,000 cubic feet, and softwood, pitch-pine, red- 

 wood, &c., 75,000 cubic feet for permanent work ; and 

 for merely temporary staging, 550,000 cubic feet blue- 

 gum and other hardwood ; and pitch pine, &c., for super- 

 structure, 700,000 cubic feet ; so that an undertaking 

 which will consume some 27,000 to 30,000 loads, or 

 1,500,000 cubic feet, in its construction, is not a matter 

 which any timber-producing country can regard with 

 indifference. 



You will naturally ask why we were obliged to come 



to Tasmania for these piles of 100 feet in length and 18 to 



20 inches square ? Could we not have got them in some 



other quarter less distant, and at a smaller cost ? In 



reply to this, 1 can tell you that we could and did get 



very good timber of the same length and dimensions 



from Vancouver's Land, and have employed already a 



large quantity on the Dover works. We found, however, 



that this Oregon timber, which, I may mention, cost us 



considerably less in price than Tasmanian blue-gum, 



had certain disadvantages. In the first place, it has only 



47 to 48 lbs. of specific gravity. This, in itself, is an 



objection for driving purposes. In a place like Dover, 



where we have to contend against strong tides and 



currents, it is nearly impossible to get a pile of 



Oregon 100 feet in length into position for driving it 



into the ground, through 47 feet of water at low tide, 



unless it is what we call '* weighted" with old railw^ay iron 



at the end, and which entails an expense in material and 



labour of nearly £10 per log. Then we have to reckon 



in these submarine structures wnth a very small, but most 



destructive, little insect called, in Latin, the " Terr idee 



iiavalis,^^ or, in plain English, a species of seaw^orm. We 



found that in 21 months to two years' time this ravaging 



little animal completely honeycombed an 18-inch log of 



