SOME SPECIMENS OF AUSTRALIAN FAUNA AND FLORA. 197 



statements have been made that in favoured spots the giant gum attains the 

 height of 500 feet ; just as equally confident assertions have been published 

 that the Sequoia of California runs up to 450 feet. The highest gum of 

 which there is authentic record is growing on Mount Baw-Baw, Gippsland. 

 Mr. Clement Hodgkinson, C.E., gives the official measurement as 471 feet. 

 The highest tree now standing in California is 325 feet, so that the 

 eucalypt is the taller by 146 feet. If two tall elms, 70 feet high, were 

 placed on the top of the tallest Sequoia in existence, the Mount Baw-Baw 

 eucalypt would still overlook the three. 



The Fernshaw or Black Spur timber is famous because it is easily 

 reached from Melbourne, but the trees themselves are not the head of their 

 clan. A gum felled in the Otway ranges, at the instance of the late 

 Professor Wilson, measured 378 feet to the spot where its top had been 

 broken off, and, allowing for the average taper, 40 feet had been carried 

 away. A gum felled at Dandenong, and measured by Mr. D. Boyle, measured 

 420 feet. And the quantity of the timber supported by the soil where these 

 large trees are found is very remarkable. The secretary of the State Forest 

 Board noted the growth on one acre of ground in the Upper Yarra district, 

 and he found that the plot contained twenty eucalypts of a height of 350 

 feet, and thirty-eight saplings of a height of 50 feet, these trees emerging 

 from a dense undergrowth of fern and musk trees. 



In his Goldfields of Victoria Mr. Brough Smith photographs a tree 69 

 feet in circumference, and 330 feet in height, and of greater proportions 

 therefore than the greatest of the Sequoias. This tree, with hundreds of 

 others, was felled for splitting purposes. The Australian giants abound, and 

 new discoveries are constantly made ; and it is quite possible that in some 

 one of the valleys yet to be broken into by man the real giant of the globe 

 will be discovered. The picture on page 16 of the Gippsland railway running 

 through a cleared track gives some idea of a primaeval forest in Victoria. 



Mention has been made of the silver columns of the giant gum. The 

 tree sheds its bark annually, and the new skin is of a pure and dazzling 

 whiteness. As the stem is perfectly cylindrical, and as the huge fabric 

 towers 200 and 250 feet high without a branch, the sight of a group of 

 these monarchs is at these times especially beautiful. Below are the tree- 

 ferns and a lovely bush undisturbed by the wind, which may be heard 

 rustling the far-off tops of the grove. The elegant lyre-birds will be drinking 

 at a spring. Parrots of gorgeous plumage flit by. Few can gaze upon such 

 a scene without emotion, without realising with silent awe that this fair spot 

 is Nature's temple. And then the oppressed heart, acknowledging the 

 charm, will turn from all that Nature gives to what she must bring. 



Of the other gums the pride of place must be awarded to the noble 

 Ecalpytus rostrata, or red gum of the colonists. Fine specimens are still to 

 be found near Melbourne, though the value of its wood has marked them 



