184 - Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
On the whole the method has much to recommend it—both simplicity 
and cheapness, with a guarantee of success based not only on the present 
Tasmanian experience but on the experience of ages, charring timber as & 
means to durability dating back to the highest antiquity. 
An opinion has been imported from Western Australia, in connection 
with the reported appearance of worm-borings in the Jarrah piles of a 
recently constructed work at Onehunga, “that the action of the worm will 
be confined to the sap-wood." The experience gained by the Auckland 
wharf confirms the correctness of this opinion in the case of totara piles, 
but in this case, before the mature timber was reached and the ravages 
of the worm checked, the totara piles were reduced to six inches diameter, 
when the wharf had to be renewed. A most important question is thus 
introduced. Would it be safe to trust to the amount of mature timber 
in any of the Jarrah piles imported. Certainly many of those now in 
Wellington are young trees. I am of opinion that no Jarrah piles 
fifty feet in length should be less than two feet diameter at the top, and 
it would increase their value here if the additional weight was squared or 
rounded off in Western Australia. 
I have also to draw your attention to a portion of a pile from a Maori 
pah, presented by the Hon. Mokena Kohere to the Colonial Museum. The 
interest attached to this specimen of timber, the yellow pine or Manoao of 
the natives, Dacrydium colensoi, Hook., is its great age. The history 
attached states that this pile was taken from an old native pah at Tapuae- 
haruru, on the Omapere Lake, Bay of Islands district. This pah, accord- 
ing to native history, was built about fourteen or fifteen generations ago, 
by an old Maori warrior named Hua, so that it must be several hundred 
years old. 
This species of Dacrydium is found throughout the colony, from the north 
of Auckland to Otago, but never in great quantity, the average size being two 
and a half to three feet in diameter, and occasionally five to six feet in 
diameter. 
The specimen is perfectly sound, close grained and heavy, the chief 
feature of interest attached to it being the complete destruction of the sap- 
wood by weathering, and the small amount of heart-wood or mature timber 
remaining being only five inches diameter. It may be concluded that this 
specimen has either formed part of a very young tree, or the sap-wood of 
this species of Dacrydium forms a large portion of the timber. At the 
same time it proves that the sap-wood of even the most durable New 
Zealand timber trees is of little value, and should either be removed or 
protected in some manner by charring or otherwise. 
