Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/684

664 the Cape Colony and Algeria; the Orange Free State, Southern Europe, notably France and Italy, Brazil, the pampas of South America, Mexico, California, Jamaica, and even India, could have competed. Hence it would be no fiction' to pronounce to-day that the Eucalyptus is the cosmopolitan tree.

But our subject is interesting to three kinds of observers—the economist, or utilitarian, the botanist, and the geologist. Let us ask of each one a free-hand sketch.

The first, who is a matter-of-fact personage, adduces the economic uses of these gum-trees, as the Eucalypts are frequently called. When freshly cut the wood of these trees is soft, but so full is it of a resinous gum that it soon hardens, and becomes wellnigh imperishable. For ships, and docks, and jetties, it is invaluable. The terrible Teredo navalis, or ship-worm, lets it alone. It is proof also against that fearful scourge the termites, or white ant. Hence, in India, eucalyptus wood is used for the sleepers of the railroads, where it defies the insects and the climate. So great is the variety of the eucalypts, that they are provident for nearly every purpose which wood can subserve. The ship-builder, wheelwright, carpenter, coach-maker, and cabinetmakers, are all supplied. Usually the eucalypts are evergreens, and hold tenaciously to their leaves. But they readily shed their bark, as a rule, and in such immense pieces can this be detached that the natives make a rude tent of a single piece. Of many species the bark is serviceable for paper-making. For size no trees can equal these Australian gums in the magnitude of the timber afforded. A plank sent from Victoria, and intended for the London Exhibition, but which arrived too late, sold for ₤100. It was a clear plank, over 223 feet long, two feet six inches wide, and three inches thick. But, though excellent timber, some of the species are of little worth for fuel. In these the wood burns with such difficulty that it is regarded as specially suited for shingles.

These gum-trees are the Titans of the race. In the deep ravines of Dandenong, in Victoria, a Eucalyptus amygdalina measured 420 feet; while another, on the Black Spur, measured 480 feet, thus overtopping greatly the Pyramid of Cheops and every human achievement, and even beating by 155 feet the famous Sequoia gigantea (Torrey) ("Keystone State"), the biggest of the "big trees" of the Calaveras grove. Mr. G. W. Robinson found a eucalypt, which, at the height of four feet from the ground, had a girth of 81 feet, or 27 feet diameter. It is notable, too, that for amount of timber per acre these gum-trees are unmatchable. We read that, in one of the densest parts of the Mount Macedon state forest, an acre of Eucalyptus fissilis contained forty-two large standing trees and twelve saplings. Many of the largest of these trees were from six to seven feet in diameter four feet from the ground, and were from 200 to 220 feet high. Nor do such altitudes necessarily indicate a very high antiquity. The rapidity of