486 AUSTRALIAN NATIVE PLANTS. 
submitted pieces of the Jarrah piles which had been in use sixteen 
years, but he left them to speak for themselves, as the extent of 
the injury they suffered from the /eredo is not specified by him in 
the papers. 
The following lengthy account by Laslett of Jarrah is of 
deep interest, inasmuch as it has doubtless had considerable 
influence in forming the opinions of English officials and others as 
to the value of the timber. It must, however, be borne in mind 
that Laslett’s account was published so long back as 1875, and 
that, on account of the Western Australian Government never 
losing an opportunity of bringing the merits of this timber before 
the world, far more data are now at our service for assessing its 
proper value. 
“Jt is of straight growth and very large dimensions, but 
unfortunately is liable to early decay in the centre. The sound 
trees, however, yield solid and useful timber of from 20 to 4oft. in 
length by 11 to 24in. square, while those with faulty centres 
furnish only indifferent squares of smaller sizes, or pieces un- 
equally sided, called flitches. 
“The wood is red in colour, hard, heavy, close in texture, 
slightly wavy in the grain, and with occasionally enough figure to 
give it value for ornamental purposes; it works up quite smoothly, 
and takes a good polish. Cabinet-makers may, therefore, readily 
employ it for furniture, but for architectural, and other works where 
great strength is required, it should be used with caution, as the 
experiments prove it to be somewhat brittle in character. Some 
few years since a small supply of this wood was sent to Woolwich 
Dockyard, with the view to test its quality and fitness for employ- 
ment in ship-building, but the sample did not turn out well, owing 
to the want of care in the selection of the proper wood in the 
colony. The shipping officer sent only such small. squares as 
might have been produced from logs cut or quartered longitudin- 
ally, which left in each case one weak or shaky angle, instead of 
sending the full-sized compact square log representing all that the 
growth of the tree would give. It is just possible, however, that 
this was unavoidable, since it may be inferred from the nature of 
the conversions that the trees from which they were cut com- 
