Bram.—On the Building Materials of Otago. 158 
Cedar is plentiful on the mountain ranges of the east coast, from the 
Mataura River to Waikouaiti, but scarce in all the other forests of the pro- 
vince ; it is generally found from an altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 feet. The 
greater portion of the timber trees on Mount Cargill, and the northern 
slopes of Flagstaff and Mihiwaka, are of cedar. This tree is easily recog- 
nized: the trunk is usually quite free of branches, and the head is of a 
handsome conical shape. The lowest branches, which are also the widest, 
grow in a horizontal direction, consequently the base of the cone is well- 
defined. The bark is rough and fibrous like totara, but the foliage, which 
is erect and stiff, has a greater resemblance to old rimu. The tree grows to 
a height of from sixty to eighty feet, with a clear trunk of from twenty to forty 
feet long, and two to three feet in diameter, but the larger of these sizes is rare. 
At Miliiwaku the trunks are generally from eighteen inches to two feet in 
diameter, and twenty feet long, butthey are somewhat longer near the head of 
the Waitaki. The tree from which one of the boards shown was cut grew on 
Pine Hill, the trunk of which measured thirty-five feet in length. The cedars 
of the Kaihiku Ranges are the same size as at Blueskin, but some trees at 
Catlin River are much larger. One trunk recently measured was forty feet 
long, three feet six inches in diameter at the butt, and three feet at the top ; 
the log had a slight twist in the grain, but was straight and sound throughout. 
Buchanan mentions a cedar, cut in the vicinity of Dunedin, that was four 
feet in diameter. 
The wood is of a dark red colour, straight grained and solid, but rather 
weak. It resembles very much the famous redwood of California (Sequoia 
sempervirens), Which is the timber most used in America for railway sleepers, 
and here for Venetian blinds. Buchanan says that the heart-wood of L. 
bidwillii is so soft that soap-bubbles may be blown through a foot length of 
it; but this is no criterion of its value, for the same thing may be done with 
most straight grained timbers. Blowing bubbles through new planes, 
which are made of solid beech wood, is a favourite amusement among young 
carpenters in the Old Country, and I have seen bubbles blown quite easily 
through an oak stave three feet long that had been taken from an old beer 
cask. As a matter of curiosity, the experiment was tried with cedar ; 
samples of old and young timber, seasoned and unseasoned, were tried, but 
in no case could bubbles be blown through three inches of heart-wood. We 
must therefore conclude that Mr. Buchanan’s specimen was more porous 
than usual. 
Cedar grows faster than most European timber trees ; judging from the 
annual rings, it reaches maturity in from 170 to 400 years. There is very 
little sap-wood generally—not more than from an inch to an inch and a 
T 
