6 
In Tasmania it is used for fencing, palings, and railway sleepers. 
In New South Wales it is used in the districts in which it is found, for snow- 
shoes, whilst its paleness and pleasing grain has commended it for use as bedroom 
furniture, and Mr. W. Kopsen, of Sydney, has extensively employed it m 
manufacture of boat oars and implement handles, which have displaced much of the 
American trade (the product of American Ash) in these articles. 
The timber of Eucalyptus gigantea is one of the most valuable of the 
Eucalypts, and its utilisation is capable of enormous development. Australians 
who desire to see the products of their country utilised, should take the trouble to 
ascertain the merits of this timber, and encourage those firms which are enterprising 
enough ta utilise it. 
Mr. T. H. Williams, District Forester, Tumbarumba, speaks thus enthusi- 
astically of this timber : 
Although I have seen our best forests, and had years of experience as a sawmiller before cominp to 
this district, I shared the common prejudice that Mountain Ash was an inferior, soft, spongy timber, its 
use only justified where other timbers could not be got. 
My experience was confined to the Coast Mountain Ash (E. obliqua), which, although a good 
timber for inside use, will not last in the ground or when exposed to the weather. E. Sieberiarta, although 
better than obliqua, is still much inferior to gigantea. 
E. obliqua and Sieberiana will grow in various kinds of soil and climate, but gigantea is never 
found below winter snowline nor a mile away from volcanic soil. It is a rapid grower, and fully 
95 per cent, of seedlings grow perfectly straight ; it produces more trees to the acre than any hardwood, 
reaches a good height- frequently 150 feet to the first limb and is an ideal timber for the sawmiller, 
being seldom more than 6 feet in diameter, is round, straight as a gun-barrel, with very little taper. 
I recently measured a log 84 feet long, 5 ft. 10 in. in diameter at the butt-end, and 3 ft. 1 in. at small 
end a taper of only 2 ft. 6 in. 
This quality makes it especially valuable as a girder, either round or square. 
It is absolutely the best reafforester in the State. On an area at Pilot Hill (Bago Forest), which 
I saw ringbarked in June, 1910, there is now (June, 1912) a dense jungle of seedlings, many of them 
20 feet high. 
The timber is pale, hard, close-grained, not unlike English oak, for which it is frequently substituted 
in cabinet work, coffins, and picture frames. For heavy work, such as girders and the top structure of 
bridges, I believe it to have few equals, and only one superior, viz., grey ironbark. I know of beams and 
girders which have been in position over fifty years, and are still as sound as when first put in. 
A girder and ground plate at Mr. Hides' abandoned sawmill, erected twenty nine years ago, are 
still quite sound. The girder is 15 inches in diameter at butt and 11 inches at small end. With a 
32-foot span it carries the weight of the flat roof, which every winter is covered with feet of snow many 
tons in weight, and there is no sign of Ixmd or sag. The ground plate held the bench in position and 
stood the t-train i>f a twelve horse |iowcr engine for seventeen ye.irs. and for the past eleven years has been 
in the open,ex|ise<l N, ;i ll we, triers ; the piles and posts of the old build in;; are still quite sound. Culverts 
put up twenty five years ago, and docked with Mountain Ash, still carry a traction engine and loads 
of logs. 
Mr 1 1 i.ies house was built of ash weatherboards and shingles thirty-four years ago ; the roof is 
1 perfectly watertight, ami the Uianls, which never had a coat of paint or a verandah to protect them, 
show absolutely m> sin of decay. It has been used by Messrs. Davies and Kershaw, at Adelong, for 
several year- in making wood pipes in connection with their hydraulic dredging and sluicing operations, 
and pronounced by them superior to iron, standing a much greater pressure. I could go on quoting 
instances of its durability. 
