210 



a forest fire. Indeed, the time will come when foresters will have compiled a list of 

 trees in respect to their capacity to burn. Of course, this list may not be identical 

 with a list of fire-resistant seasoned timbers of the same species. 



The Ironbarks and Box-trees of Eastern Australia supply excellent firewoods, 

 and are hence much sought after for the purpose, and I regret to say that I have often 

 seen fine trees of this class converted into firewood by a man who has purchased the 

 " firewood rights," when they ought to have been reserved for further development 

 or for immediate constructive purposes. 



E. Seeana is a bad burner. See this work, Part XXXII, p. 30. 



In the eastern gold-mining areas of Western Australia (Kalgoorlie, &c), the 

 Eucalyptus firewood industry assumes an importance it has in no other Australian 

 gold-field, because of the absence of coal. There are " Wood-lines," owned by wood 

 companies which traverse timber areas, cut it out (under regulations approved by the 

 Forest Department), and the lines (rails) are pulled up and re-erected in another area. 

 The lines have all the essential equipment of a railway, and along its course temporary 

 village i spring up. 



The photograph, 8 B, to be reproduced later, taken and presented by Mr. C. E. 

 Lane-Poole, later Conservator of Forests for Western Australia, shows mining fuel 

 at the end of the Kurrawang line, 82 miles from Kurrawang, about 10 miles west of 

 Kalgoorlie. A trip of three days on this line as a guest of the Company, is a very 

 pleasant memory, as, apart from seeing the operations of the line, I was enabled to 

 visit an area containing interesting trees I could reach in no other way. 



Mr. Lane-Poole's notes are as follows : — 



The photograph shows the firewood stacked on each side of the line ready to be trucked. The 

 bush is divided out on each side into strips and each cutter or pair of cutters is allotted bis strip. The 

 wood is then carted in and dumped upright alongside the line. The trucks pass over a weighbridge, and 

 so the quantity of wood cut by each man is known and paid for at a rate which was fixed by agreement 

 between the workers and the Kurrawang Wood Company. All work- is piece-work, and the majority of 

 the men working are Italians. The average earnings would seem to work out at 17s. 6d. per day (1919). 



Destructive Distillation. 



See an article " Products of the Dry Distillation of Victorian Woods," in Official 

 Record, Intercolonial Exhibition (Melbourne), 1866-67, p. 238. 



Proximate analyses, including those of four Eucalyptus timbers (E. leucoxylon, 

 rostraia, obliqua, and globulus) showing the yield of charcoal, crude wood, vinegar, and 

 incondensable gases, are given at pages 241, 242. See also p. 315 (Pyroligneous acid). 



