Brarr.—On the Building Materials of Otago. 157 
eight feet, but these dimensions, though common in the North Island, are 
rare in Otago. Forty stumps recently examined on Inch Clutha range 
from three to four feet, with a few up to five; the thick trees are generally 
much shorter than those of medium diameter. The bark is of a light grey 
colour, thick, furrowed, and stringy; it was formerly used by the natives 
and old settlers in covering the walls and roofs of whares and huts. 
Totara is a comparatively slow grower—a tree three feet six inches in 
diameter is estimated to be 550 years of age. Mr. Hay, of Auckland, found 
young trees to grow about twelve feet six inches in ten years; when fully 
established, they grow two feet in a season. Totara is one of the easiest 
reared of our native trees. The tree has very little sap-wood, but is subject 
to decay in the heart, like cedar ; it commences on Inch Clutha when three 
fect six inches in diameter, and increases with the growth beyond that. 
The timber is of a reddish colour, like pencil cedar, but varies considerably, 
according to its age and the soil in which it is grown; it is straight in 
the grain, easily wrought, and not given to warping, but brittle, and apt to 
shrink if not well seasoned. Totara is suited for fencing, railway sleepers, 
and piles, together with architectural and engineering purposes generally, 
except beams, for which, on account of weakness, it is not so well adapted 
as many of the other timbers. 
The durability of totara under the most trying circumstances is well 
established and well known. I showa piece of a log found at an elevation of 
about 1,800 feet, on the Mount Pisa Ranges, where no tree has stood for 
centuries ; itis as sound as when the Moa found shelter beneath its branches. 
I also show a survey peg from the division between Sections 1 and 2, 
Block X., Waihola survey district, put in by Mr. Kettle in 1848, and taken 
out in 1874, which is still quite fresh. All the oldest house blocks and 
fencing posts throughout the province that were of heart of totara are in the 
same condition, so further proof of its durability is unnecessary. I should, 
however, remark that piles or posts made of saplings with little heart-wood 
will not last long in the ground. Mr. Kirk, of Wellington, observed this in 
bridge piles, and I noticed it myself in fencing posts ; the original telegraph 
poles on the Dunstan line also show the same thing. In black pine and old 
totara, where the heart-wood is solid, decay stops whenever the heart is 
reached ; but such is not the case with totara saplings—the disease is com- 
municated by the sap to the heart, and both perish together. Totarain the 
North Island stands the marine worm better than any other native timber, 
but it has not shown any great resisting powers here. The piles in the Bluff 
wharf were perforated to the heart, and very much riddled in a few years. 
The totara ofthe west coast, which is generally smaller than that of the 
east,is considered by Dr. Hector and Mr. Buchanan as a different tree, and Mr. 
