1 88 KAURI PINE TIMBER. 



at 109,000, were exported. * Colonel Mundy, who 

 paid a visit to the Kauri forests in the good old 

 times, mentions that at the time of his visit he saw 



" one tree just felled, which was about 6 feet in diameter, 

 with about 50 feet of perfectly straight wood. There was 

 another grand stick 9 feet in diameter, a slice of which would 

 have made a round table of 27 feet. This tree was still 

 standing in all its glory, and seemed to have about 80 feet 

 of bole, little diminishing in size before the branches, and was 

 calculated to contain 8 to 9 thousand feet of solid timber. 

 This was not a particularly fine stem however, for some have 

 100 feet of straight wood, with a fine head towering high 

 above the forest." f 



Mr. Laslett, whose experience in H.M's dockyards 

 entitles him to speak with authority on the subject 

 of timber, considers the Kauri pine timber unrivalled 

 in excellence for masts and yards, and thinks "that 

 it may be considered one of the best woods for 

 working that a carpenter can take in hand." ** He 

 had an opportunity of admiring these splendid trees 

 in their native forests, and says, the largest tree he 

 saw " was one standing near Mercury Bay, 80 feet 

 to the branches, and 7 2 feet in circumference. " f f In 

 the South Kensington Museum a transverse section 

 of a fine specimen of a Kauri pine is exhibited, highly 

 polished, and of the colour of the finest dark mahog- 

 any. We regret to say, however, this splendid tree 

 possesses such peculiarities of constitution that it 



* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia, 

 Edited by A. R. Wallace, 1879, p. 



j- Our Antipodes, by Lieut. -Colonel Q. C. Mundy. 



Timber and Timber Trees, by Thomas Laslett, Inspector to the 

 Admiralty, 1875, p. 297. 



** Ibid., p. 298. 



ft Ibid., p. 295. 



