From the foregoing statements it will be seen that there is great diversity of opinion upon the merits of Jarrah timber, and time only will show whether if imported it will find favour with ship-builders and others in this country.
Some three or four years since (about 1871) the Western Australia Timber Company were busily engaged in the forests preparing a large quantity of Jarrah for exportation. The company professes, I believe, to select only the best trees, and to cut them at the proper season; the deliveries should therefore be of the very best sort the country produces. I have earnestly looked for sample cargoes to arrive in the London Docks, but up to the present (1875) none of any importance have been reported.
| Number of the specimen. |
Deflections. | Total weight required to break each piece. |
Specific gravity. |
Weight reduced to specific gravity 1000. |
Weight required to break 1 square inch. | ||
| With the apparatus weighing 390 lbs. |
After the weight was removed. |
At the crisis of breaking. | |||||
| Inches. | Inch. | Inches. | lbs. | ||||
| 1 | 2.85 | .10 | 4.50 | 743 | 987 | 753 | 185.75 |
| 2 | 3.25 | .15 | 4.50 | 638 | 1049 | 608 | 159.50 |
| 3 | 3.25 | .15 | 5.00 | 661 | 977 | 677 | 165.25 |
| 4 | 3.50 | .15 | 5.00 | 661 | 1039 | 656 | 165.25 |
| 5 | 3.15 | .10 | 4.50 | 726 | 1006 | 722 | 181.50 |
| 6 | 3.25 | .15 | 475 | 685 | 1002 | 684 | 171.25 |
| Total | 19.25 | .80 | 28.25 | 4,114 | 6060 | 4080 | 1028.50 |
| Average | 3.21 | .133 | 4.71 | 685.66 | 1010 | 680 | 171.416 |
Remarks.—Each piece broke short.
now much sought after for railway sleepers and telegraph posts in India and the colonies. It is admirably adapted for dock gates, piles, and other purposes, and for keel-pieces, keelsons, and other heavy timber in ship-building. Vessels of considerable burthen are built entirely of this wood, the peculiar properties of which render copper sheathing unnecessary, although the sea-worm is most abundant in these waters."
