TIMBER IN TASMANIA. 25 



Oregon, and rendered it unfit for further use as a pile. 

 As all these piles are only employed as temporary 

 staging to enable us to lay our 42-ton concrete blocks 

 for permanent use, it stands to reason that, if after we 

 have laid these blocks, we are able to use the piles a 

 second time, they only cost us one-half ; three times, 

 one-third, and four times practically nothing. Now, we 

 had received through one of your most enterprising 

 timber firms, Messrs. Gray Bros., Adventure Bay, a 

 small cargo of Tasmanian timber, in which we found 

 blue-gum logs, which were, in our opinion, likely to 

 supersede Oregon to our advantage. In the first place,, 

 the specific gravity of Tasmanian blue-gum being nearly 

 75 lbs. to the cubic foot, water being about 65 lbs.,, 

 there was no necessity to weight the piles to get them 

 into position, thus saving an expenditure of £10 per log, 

 and in case of being carried away by accident they would 

 sink where they were, and could be easily recovered, 

 instead of floating about, a menace to the works or to 

 ships and steamers. Experience showed us that the sea- 

 worm did not find eiLcalypUis to its taste, and, conse- 

 quently, virtually confined its ravages to the other 

 timber of a softer and more succulent nature, of which 

 it had no difficulty in procuring a sufficient supply for 

 its wants in our harbour. 



You have in your forests in Tasmania a tree which 

 combines the desiderata we reqiure fur our piling pur- 

 poses — length, dimensions, solidity, and high specific 

 gravity, and less liability to attack by the terrida^ in 

 number sufficient for our wants for many years to come, 

 and in situation near enough to the sea to allow of its 

 being loaded on ships without too heavy a transport cost. 

 This timber is known to botanists as the Eucalyptus 

 ylohuhis^ and is commonly called Blue-gum, and for size, 

 strength, and durability it would be difficnlt, in my 

 opinion, to find any wood superior to it. The enormous 

 size and height to which these giants of the bush grow, 

 enable us to hew out of them piles of 100 feet in length 

 and 20 inches squared parallel from top to bottom. To 

 do this, however, we require a tree 15 ft. to 18 ft. in 

 girth 5 feet from the ground, and about 150 feet to the 

 first branch. We found trees of this length and dimen- 



