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rampant. Timbers were either exhibited under vernaculars (an honest method) or 

 under vernaculars with botanical names " fitted on " to them, which sometimes was not 

 honest, although there was no intention to deceive. The managers of our courts at 

 International Exhibitions demanded botanical names, and the officer in charge of an 

 exhibit did his best to oblige. And when it is pointed out that some timbers have a 

 dozen vernaculars, and that the same vernacular may perhaps be applied to a dozen 

 timbers, some idea of the position can be formed, or perhaps not. Many years ago 

 I set out to do something to rectify a state of things which reflected no credit on any 

 Australian State. 



The scientific method (always the true method) was adopted, and one thing 

 led to another. Firstly, in 1881, I set myself to gather together the scattered literature 

 of Australian timbers, and this led to the compilation of my " Useful Native Plants of 

 Australia " (1889), a pioneer work, followed by a " Bibliography of Australian Economic 

 Botany " in 1892. Meantime this research led to my forming the timber collection 

 of the Technological Museum, Sydney. For a reference to the earliest collections see 

 my Annual Report of the Technological Museum, presented to Parliament for 1886, 

 p. 16, and especially 1887, p. 24. The collections were based on material of ascertained 

 botanical origin, with the view of reducing empiricism to a minimum. In my capacity 

 as one of the New South Wales Commissioners for various International Exhibitions, 

 I saw the old empirical methods in full swing, and because I could not convince my 

 colleagues (worthy citizens, but few with scientific proclivities), that the way they were 

 exhibiting our timbers was of very little practical value, and, because my desire to 

 substitute authentic information for empiricism met with little response, I determined 

 to throw my energy into the formation of the permanent referential timber collection 

 already referred to. 



The following preface to a paper read by me, by invitation, before the Engineering 

 Association of New South Wales, and published in the " Building and Engineering 

 Journal," Sydney, and also in the " Builders' and Contractors' News," of 25th May, 

 1889, shows that the serious investigation of the properties of New South Wales and 

 Australian timbers is comparatively recent, although the period is a big slice in the 

 working life of a man : — 



Systematic attempts to describe and classify our timbers date from the year 1855, the date of the 

 Paris Exhibition, as it was only Tasmania (Van Diemen's Land, as it was then called) which used the Great 

 Exhibition of 1851 to make known her native timbers. In the year 1854, for the display at Paris in the 

 year following, the first serious attempt was made to gather our native timbers together, name, and give 

 particulars concerning them. This work was delegated to Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Macarthur, who 

 undertook the collection of timbers from what was called the " southern districts " of New South Wales, 

 but which mainly comprised the counties of Cumberland and Camden, while Mr. Charles Moore, then, 

 as now (I succeeded him in 1896 — J.H.M.), Director of the Botanic Gardens, took charge of the " northern 

 district," but his specimens came from what is now a portion of southern Queensland. These two 

 gentlemen again co-operated for the London Exhibition of 1862, their collections in that exhibition being of 

 enhanced value, partly by reason of their greater number, and partly because they were better named, 

 owing to the advance of Australian botanical science in the interim. Queensland having become a separate 

 colony since the previous exhibition, Mr. Moore substituted for his previous collection a large number of 

 timbers chiefly from the Clarence River district of our colony. Since then, advantage has been taken to 



