THE WORLD'S BIG TREES 87 



the gums are given as victims to the axe and the fire- 

 brand. 



As statements of the unfamiliar, and particularly state- 

 ments of great size, are generally received with scepticism 

 and ridicule by the ignorant, it will be well to give here 

 actual authenticated measurements. I have never seen a 

 big gum which measured as much as five hundred feet ; 

 but I believe those who say they have made such measure- 

 ments. I have measured with my own hands several trees 

 which exceeded four hundred and forty feet. The average 

 height of the trees in the Fernshaw gum forests is from 

 three hundred to four hundred feet. As late as 1890, 

 thousands of trees of four hundred feet might have been 

 obtained. I have not seen them since that year. They 

 were then being felled and destroyed wantonly. 



The girth of these trees varies much, and does not 

 always bear a true relation to their height. Eighty-eight 

 feet is the greatest girth I have measured at a height of 

 five feet above the roots. A circumference of from forty 

 to fifty feet may be taken as the average of the biggest 

 trees. Planks of about two hundred feet long have been 

 cut from some trees, but the timber is not held in much 

 esteem. 



The varieties of the gum-tree are very many in number; 

 but they mostly bear local names which are quite different 

 from their ordinary specific names. Iron-wood, black-wood, 

 blood-wood, etc., etc., are all varieties of the gum ; and 

 there are blue, red, and white gums, and some others. 

 The gum they all exude is valueless, or nearly so. It may 

 have a small medicinal value ; but it cannot be used as a 

 cement, or for any of the ordinary uses to which the true 

 gums are put. 



As is well known, the eucalypti shed the outer coat of 

 their bark ; but it is a mistake to assert that they do not 

 shed their leaves also, though they are evergreens. When 

 a gum forest is in process of bark-shedding, it presents a 

 most ragged and untidy appearance : strips of the bark of a 

 light tan colour hanging from the trunks, some of them 

 thirty feet long, and waving weirdly in the passing breeze. 



