Page:Timber and Timber Trees, Native and Foreign.djvu/318

298 considered one of the best woods for working that the carpenter can take in hand.

There are many experiments on the strength of the Kauri Pine, and the first to be noticed are on specimens

taken from the butt-end of a log that was fully 60 feet in length and 22 inches square. A plank 2 inches thick having been taken out of the middle, it was cut to produce six pieces of 2 × 2 × 84 inches, four upon one side of the centre or pith and two upon the other (Fig. 33). The centre piece was excluded from the test as being of too weak a nature to bear comparison with the rest of the wood.

—These specimens broke with a moderate length of fracture.

The table shows that transversely the strongest point was much nearer to the more recently-formed