Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/209

] as it grows ometimes to the height of 150 feet, blooms only near its ummit. Its trunk exactly reembles that of the eucalyptus reinifera, when its pongy bark has been peeled off. In other repects thee two pecies are nearly of the ame dimenions. The trunk, which is very traight, at leat to one half of its height, might be uefully employed in hip-building, and epecially for mats, although it is neither o light nor o elatic as that of the fir. Poibly it might be of advantage to contruct mats of different pieces of timber, and even to perforate the large trunks of trees throughout their whole length, o as to render them lighter, and to give them trength by binding them at equal ditances with hoops of iron. By this means, I hould think, they might be rendered as trong as one could wih; ince perons vered in mechanics know that a cylinder, though hollow, till retains a great degree of trength.

We were obliged to cut down one of thee trees in order to obtain its blooms. Being already in a very lanting poition, it was eaily felled. As the un hone very bright the ap was mounting in abundance, and as oon as the tree was cut down it flowed very copiouly from the lower part of the trunk.

This beautiful tree, which belongs to the tribe of the myrtles, has a very mooth bark; its branches