222 TIMBERS AND THEIR USES 



or Black Pine, Kahikatea or White Pine, and the 

 Westland and Silver Pines. Among other useful 

 trees are four Beeches, the tooth-leaved, entire 

 leaved, mountain and silver varieties ; the Rata, 

 a member of the Myrtle family ; the Puriri or 

 New Zealand Teak ; the Black Maire (an Olive), 

 the Hinau and the Tawa. The forests are fairly 

 well distributed over the whole of the North 

 Island, while in the Middle Island the most 

 extensive belts foUow the course of the alpine 

 range which skirts the western coast. 



The chmate of New Zealand is mainly deter- 

 mined by its insular situation in the South 

 Pacific, and as a whole the country is colder 

 and more humid than Australia. Periods of 

 lasting drought are scarcely known, and it is 

 very seldom that a whole month passes in any 

 part of the colony in the drier part of the year 

 without rain. The usual annual rainfall, leaving 

 out of account one or two places on the west 

 coast of the Middle Island, where it is very 

 heavy, varies from 35 to 50 inches. 



This question of forest distribution is of course 

 intimately associated with timber supply, but 

 it is important from another point of view, that 

 of climate, as our remarks have already shown 

 to some extent. The question of the climatic 

 influence of forests is so well and concisely 

 summed up in the fourteenth report on forestry 



