14 



also become exhausted, while carriage from an indefinite 

 distance will become a financial impossibility. The present 

 price of coal at Clunes is far too high to allow it to be substi- 

 tuted for wood. Now let us pass on to still other considera- 

 tions bearing on this question. It so happens that the 

 decrease of timber in our colonies is hastened by other 

 agencies than those of sacrifice for utilitarian supply. Irre- 

 spective of the ordinary causes, by which in many countries 

 the virgin forests became devastated, there are additionally 

 others which operate in our colony to augment the extensive 

 destruction of woods. The miner ignites the underwood, with 

 a view of uncovering any quartz-reefs, or tracing mineral 

 riches of other kinds. Although he desires only to force thus 

 his way through a limited space of scrub, or uncover for 

 inspection a small extent of ground, he really sets sometimes 

 the whole forest on fire, unchaining the furies of the fiery 

 element, which, in its ruinous and rapid progress, consumes 

 innumerable stately trees, requiring the growth of one or even 

 several centuries to attain their spacious dimensions. The 

 burning trees, a prey of the flames, carry with them many 

 others in their fall; others become partially scorched, and 

 linger gradually to decay; others become at least so far im- 

 paired as to offer no longer a sound or superior timber. Very 

 aged eucalyptus trees are almost always suffering already from 

 natural decay in the central portions of the stem. It is far 

 from me to wish to impede the operations and progress of the 

 miners, to whose intelligence and hard-working activity this 

 country owes so much; but the advantages of gold-mining in 

 our ranges may sometimes be too dearly bought at the 

 expense of very extensive forest-destruction, with all the evils 

 concomitant to it, or sure to follow it. Many other causes 

 such as the carelessness of travellers set also frequently 

 portions of the forest on fire, while the control over the devas- 

 tation is lost. 



The answer to remonstrances amounts usually to an opinion 

 that more wood is springing up again than has been destroyed ; 

 but let us ask, how long will it be until the suckers, saplings 

 or seedlings, which undoubtedly in many instances occupy 

 the burned ground, forming perhaps impenetrable thickets, 

 until they will really have advanced to the size of timber 

 trees, fit for the saw-mill *? In other localities, less densely 

 wooded, where the trees were so dispersed as to give to the 

 natural scenery, before it was disturbed, a park-like appear- 

 ance, in such localities, which impressed on many of the 



