f land bearing a sufficiency
of good timber to supply them for twelve years to come. It is believed
that by that time all the kauri-forests of New Zealand will be worked
out or exhausted. In anticipation of the failure of this supply for
ship's masts and spars, iron is being very generally adopted, and will
eventually take the place of wood altogether.

The commercial prosperity of Auckland and its vicinity is largely due to
the harvest reaped from these forests. The kauri-tree grows to an
average height of a hundred feet, with a diameter of fifteen feet and
over. It is a clannish tree, so to speak; when found near to those of
other species, it groups itself in clumps apart from them. One often
sees, however, large forests where the kauri reigns supreme, quite
unmixed with other trees; and beneath the shadow of its limbs there is
no undergrowth save the verdant ferns,--Nature's universal carpet for
the woodlands here. There are thus created dim perspectives and forest
vistas of marvellous beauty.

The kauri gum forms a large figure in the table of exports from
Auckland, and the digging and preparation of it for market, as we have
shown, gives employment to many persons. The natives have a theory that
the gum descends from the trunks of the growing trees, and through the
roots becomes deposited in the ground. But this is not reasonable. The
gum is a semi-fossilized composition, showing that it has gone through
a process which only a long period of time could accomplish. It is
usually found at a depth of five or six feet from the surface. It is
undoubtedly the fact that the northern part of New Zealand was once
covered with immense forests of this gum-producing tree, which have
matured and been destroyed by fire and by decay, century after century;
and the deposit which is now so marketable is from the dead trees, not
the living. Experiments have been tried which prove that the gum exuded
by the growing trees has no commercial value. The only evidence to give
color to the Maori theory is the fact that the gum is found near the
roots of young trees; but it is also found far away from any present
kauri growth. It is very similar to amber, for which article it is often
sold to unskilled purchasers; but its principal use is in the
manufacture of varnish. Amber, it will be remembered, is the product of
a now extinct tree of the pine family, whole forests of which are
supposed to have been sunken in the Baltic Sea, whence our