22 FOREST OULTUEE AND 



allows it to remain a long time in contact with salt 

 water. It is equally durable in the ground as is the 

 Oak, and can be employed with advantage for sleep- 

 ers for railroads. The durability of the wood makes 

 it valuable for the keels of vessels, for the construc- 

 tion of bridges, piers, and viaducts. 



" The Eucalyptus is not only valuable as a wood, 

 but has medicinal properties. In Valencia, Spain, it 

 is vulgarly called the fever - tree, on account of its 

 properties for preventing malarial fevers. There, its 

 properties are so well known as a cure for fevers 

 that its leaves are often plundered, and in a public 

 garden of a great city, it is necessary to surround the 

 fever-tree with a guard, in order to preserve it from 

 being stripped. It has, also, disinfectant virtues, and 

 is antiseptic for wounds — its essential oil being a 

 stimulant, and the tannin in the leaves, acting as a 

 tonic astringent applied exteriorly, hastens the heal- 

 ing of a wound. Various chemists have enumerated 

 its uses as an infusion, decoction, powder, distUled 

 water, tincture, extract and essence. From the most 

 authentic testimony, the Eucalyptus appears or seems 

 to be a very eflScacious remedy against a great num- 

 ber of intermittent fevers. 



^i* Eucalyptus globulus, Blue Gum-tree of Victoria 

 and Tasmania. This tree is of extremely rapid growth, 

 and attains a height of four hundred feet, furnishing a 

 flrst-class wood. Ship-builders get keels of this timber 

 one hundred and twenty feet long ; besides this, they 

 use it extensively for planking and many other parts of 

 the ship, and it is considered to be generally superior 



• Thos. Adamson, Jr., IT. S. Oonsul-Oeneral at Melboarne, copied at my 

 lequBBt from the pamphletB of Baron Ferd, von Mueller, tjie deecription 

 Jipf e given to the E. ^loiulm, and g. ro^tr^a, ' 



