KAURI GUM MINING IN NEW ZEALAND 
R. A. F. PENROSE, Jr. 
Several years ago, while on a trip to New Zealand, the writer 
had an opportunity to see something of what is known as kauri 
gum mining in that country. ‘This industry consists of digging a 
resinous material which in bygone times has exuded from kauri 
trees and has become imbedded in the soil or subsoil, where it exists 
in a fossil condition, often in remarkably large quantities. 
The kauri tree (A gathis australis Salisbury; Dammara australis 
Lambert) is characteristic of certain parts of New Zealand, though 
it is confined geographically to narrow limits, and is most abundant 
from Cape North southward to the Auckland peninsula, in about 
latitude 37°S., a distance of about 200 miles, where its gigantic 
size makes it the monarch of the forests. It is found but rarely 
south of latitude 38°S. It occurs most plentifully at rather low 
altitudes, and is rare at elevations of over 1,500 feet, though some 
trees have been found at 2,500 feet or more.* 
The kauri tree has a straight, symmetrical trunk, rising fre- 
quently from eighty to one hundred feet in height and sometimes 
even as much as one hundred and twenty-five or one hundred and 
fifty feet. In diameter the full-grown tree varies from four to 
twelve feet, while in extreme cases it may measure twenty feet or 
more. The top of the tree is large and spreads out in heavy 
branches, while the trunk is comparatively smooth, with a gray 
bark which peels off and collects in heaps at the base of the tree. 
The kauri is not so large as some of the largest of the redwood 
(Sequoia) trees of California, but it occupies the same position of 
prominence in the New Zealand forests as do the latter on the west- 
ern coast of the United States, Like the redwoods also it is very 
valuable for lumber, and many of the once magnificent forests have 
been cut down, but enough remain to attest to their former 
grandeur. 
tT. Kirk, The Forest Flora of New Zealand, Wellington, N.Z. (1889), p. 150. 
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