170 FOREST-TREES OF NEW ZEALAND. 
Firs of Scandinavia, the Baltic, or North America; our own Oak, Ash, 
Elm, Birch, and Beech ; or Mahogany, Walnut, Rosewood, and other 
ornamental woods. Among the very various purposes to which Otago 
timber has already been applied, may be mentioned ship- and boat- 
building ; the construction of jetties, wharves, and bridges ; of houses, 
— including shingle for roofing, —of churches, and other publie edifices 
of every class ; the manufacture of furniture and cabinet-work, plain and 
ornamental; of implements used in agriculture, joinery, or carpentry, 
in turnery and cooper work, in block-cutting for paper- and calico- 
printing, or wood-engraving ; in fencing, and as firewood. The Otago 
timber-trees supply excellent material for ship-building, . which is 
carried on chiefly on the inlets of the south-eastern and southern 
coasts, and on the fjords of Stewart's Island. In Otago, and, appa- 
rently, in the South Island generally, Totara and Red Pine are the 
material chiefly used for knees and timbers, deck- and side-planking. 
he Red and Blaek Pine, which abound in the forests of Stewart's 
Island, furnish the best class of ship-building timber. In the New 
Zealand Exhibition of 1865, Dunedin-made yachts, boats, and naval 
models of Otago timber were shown (No. 608). 
Some of the Otago timbers have a high reputation also for their 
durability when exposed to fresh or salt water, and for their resistance 
to the destructive action of marine boring-animals ; though it has yet 
to be determined how far this reputation is well-founded. For dura- 
bility in water, or in moist situations, the woods most generally 
esteemed at present are Manuka, Totara, Black Birch, Black Pine, and 
Red Mapau. 
Ornamental woods are as abundant in Otago as in the more 
northerly parts of New Zealand. They afford great scope for the 
application of the decorative arts (design, carving, inlaying) to the 
higher departments of cabinet-work. The New Zealand Exhibition 
contained numerous admirable specimens of inlaid work, showing 
great variety of colour. In point of beauty of material, furniture, 
made of Otago—and, generally, of New Zealand—woods, competed 
favourably with that made from the finest ornamental woods of other 
and older countries. Indeed, nothing can surpass some of the woods 
i question in beauty.* 
— Reports, New Zealand Exhibition, 1865, p. 285 (Report on Fur- 
