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line of the trunk from the root to the crown, where the powerful 
branches are twined into a dense, dark-green roof, through which, 
like golden stars on the roof of a vault, the light of day peers into 
the dusk of the woods. The bark of trees four feet thick is from one 
inch to one and a-half thick, scaling off as in our firs. The blooming 
season of the tree is in December; the cones are almost spherical 
and comparatively very small, their diameter not even amounting 
to the length of our pine-cones; when dry, they fall easily to pieces. 
When the cones towards the end of February are ripe, the Kauri 
woods are frequented by numerous birds which feed on the seeds. 
The oldest and largest trunks attain a diameter of 15 feet ‘, 
corresponding to a circumference of from 40 to 50 feet, and a 
height of 100 feet to the lowest branches; or from 150 feet to 
1 80 feet to the top of the crown. Such trees are probably from 
7 to 800 years old. Having examined several trunk-sections, I found; 
as the mean result, from 10 to 12 annual rings to one inch, al- 
though in some cases the rings attain a much greater thickness. 
In some few cases of rare occurrence, I have even observed single 
rings of a thickness of one inch. For the saw-mill, the wood- 
cutters generally pick out trees of four feet diameter with trunks 
measuring from 60 to 80 feet to the crown. Such trees are pro- 
bably 250 to 300 years old. The trunks are sawed into logs of 
10 feet to 20 feet in length upon the spot, where they are felled, 
- - one tree generally yielding from 4 to 6 logs , — and these logs 
are then conveyed to the saw-mill. Since the plank-saws are often 
at a considerable distance , situated at points from which the timber 
can be immediately shipped, the transport of those logs is in fact 
the heaviest piece of work in the whole wood-business. First, a 
broad clearing leads from the interior of the forest, generally straight 
down the steep mountain-slopes, and forms a kind of road along 
which the logs are rolled down to the head of a regular tramway. 
Upon this road which, as in the Iluia, is cut through the bush 
i In the vicinity of Coromandel Harbour stands a specimen of 17 feet diameter; 
upon the Papakura flats another of 15 feet, and near Matakana a third ot 14 feet 
diameter. 
