44 
This will, I am sure, appeal to all when I state that I am to-day going to strongly recommend to 
the trade some new species of Ash. Now, there are several timbers going under this name, but it is only 
by using the specilic names that the right sorts can be procured. 
This can be easily overcome by the trade using specific names for their timber, and such are not 
difficult to acquire, as has been proved by the Eucalyptus oil industry. For when this Museum took this 
matter up, the utmost confusion existed in the matter of naming, owing to using common names. To-day 
almost every distiller of eucalyptus oil uses species names for his oil, and so places it on the world’s market. 
And now the English and German manufacturers place orders here for oil of E. polybractea, E. Mncarthuri, 
E. Smithii , Ac., >kc., and will have nothing whatever to do with such terms as “Blue Mallee,” “Paddy 
River Box,” “Gully Ash ”—-terms previously used by settlers for these gum trees. 
Again, by using common names it makes it very easy for the unscrupulous dealer to substitute a 
poor quality of timber for a better one. 
II.—IDENTIFICATION OF TIMBERS. 
The imported timbers are so few that not much time is required to obtain a knowledge of them, 
but in the matter of Australian timbers the case is quite different, for often timbers of distinct species are 
so similar that the expert botanist is often at his wits’ end to differentiate them. 
After twenty years of experience with our timbers I doubt if a quick and sure method of identifying 
our timbers is possible. 
Microscopical sections assist very little, if any, in this matter, and I have come to the conclusion 
that there is no royal road, and that a knowledge of our timbers can only be acquired by having a 
collection of correctly named samples for reference. Such a collection I shall be pleased to present to any 
member of the Congress upon application to this Museum. 
In the list of timbers given below, and which are found in commercial quantities and are 
recommended for carriage-building, a brief guide and description is given that may be used in identifying 
these timbers when found on the market. 
III.—SEASONING. 
The coachbuilder having acquired the correct timber for his purpose, the next most important 
matter is to season it. To buy it seasoned seems almost impossible so far as my knowledge goes, and 
concerning this important feature of the subject there yet remains much to be done in regard to a 
knowledge of the seasoning characteristics of our Australian timbers. There seems, however, to be a 
consensus of opinion that Australian timbers season badly, but, like most other voces populorum, this idea is 
erroneous. I make bold to say that it is not correct to assert that all the good seasoning timbers can only 
come from the other half of the world, and no better example can be given than that of English Oak 
Instances are recorded where English Oak after being in a building for four hundred years, has been taken 
out, and although apparently as good as the day it was put in, has been found to shrink after being planed 
and dressed. 
Australian timbers, if used in the green state—and that is the condition I suppose in which 90 per 
cent, of the local timber is used—will, like all others under similar circumstances, behave in a similar way. 
I remember as a boy seeing extensive stacks of timber from all parts of the world, roofed over only, 
in the different dockyards in England, that were seasoning before being placed in the vessels of the British 
Navy. These baulks were stacked similar to bricks in a kiln, so that air could circulate all round, but 
yet were kept dry by the roof. The date of storing was placed on each log, which would remain in the 
shed for years and not used till thoroughly dry. 
Can anyone wonder, then, that the wooden walls of Old England lasted so long, and could stand 
any amount of pounding from the guns of their foes 1 
Some of the first cargoes to leave Sydney after the landing of Governor Phillip consisted largely of 
our timbers. These, I am prepared to say, were not utilised before being thoroughly seasoned, and in this 
connection I exhibit a specimen of Red Gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis, Sm.), taken from the battleship 
“ Nelson ”—it is thoroughly seasoned. Comment is needless. 
