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under the plane, and its horny texture. The result is that when planed ironbark 
shows the appearance of more or less parallel striae, or lines of close textured wood, 
strongly resembling horn, while between these the wood has a more open grain, 
showing narrow pits which may be seen, even by the naked eye, to be filled by a 
substance of a resinous texture. In some specimens it is not easy, however, to make 
out these lines of horny-textured wood, but the resin-pits appear to be always 
present. Ironbark is more or less curly in the grain, consequently it often gives 
trouble to plane to a perfectly smooth surface. If a blunt tool be used the ironbark 
tears in fairly regular blotches, while to get a perfectly smooth surface the wood 
often requires to he traversed with the plane, or even to he gone over v r ith the steel 
scraper. Its hardness and weight often preclude it from use, perhaps an advantage, 
as otherwise the consumption of this timber would he inordinate. 
Principal uses .—Ironbark is the king of New South Wales hardwoods, in 
fact it is not excelled in any part of the continent for combined strength and 
durability. It is extensively used in bridge construction, for railway sleepers, for 
posts, for naves, spokes, shafts, and framing, by the waggon and carriage builder; 
for large beams in buildings, particularly in stores for heavy goods; in a word, 
wherever great strength is required. Tor such purposes as railway-sleepers, it will 
last an indefinite period, and in many cases has to be taken up, not because it shows 
signs of decay from exposure on the permanent-way, or disintegration, because of 
the vibration to which it has been subjected, but because holes have been made in 
the sleeper by the renewal of bolts and spikes. I have specimens of sleepers which 
have borne the heaviest traffic of the main line, near Sydney, for twenty-five years, 
and which arc as sound as the day they were laid. 
JE. paniculata is the ironbark usually called White or Grey Ironbark in the 
coast districts. It is, however, also called Red Ironbark in the Moruya and 
Wagonga districts and other places. 
The best white ironbark is very pale, the hardest of ironbarks, and cuts 
almost like horn; some of the same species from the Moruya district is of a medium 
red colour, not unlike Sydney blue gum in tint. It is to white ironbark of good 
quality that all the encomiums which have been passed on ironbark may be 
attributed. At the same time, timber but little inferior may be produced by some 
of the other ironbarks. 
Size. —Usually a tree of medium size, say 60 or 70 feet in height, wfith a 
diameter of 2 to d< feet; it exceptionally attains a greater size. 
Mr. A. R. Crawford, a man of considerable knowledge of our timber trees, 
wrote me in 1896 :— 
On my recent visit to the Macleay I was informed by a gentleman there that an ironbark tree had 
not long before 1 een measured by the mining manager of Baker’s Creek Co., Hill, 125 feet to the first 
limb. I lie deeply furrowed hard barked species, which T think is Eucalyptus paniculata, is the kind 
meant. 
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