AN IMMENSE KAURI.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1040, 22 June 1883, Page 3

AN IMMENSE KAURI.

The following description is by a correspondent of the Aero Zealand Herald: — “ This tree is fully 13 feet in diameter, and over 40 feet in circumference. For a distance of 45 feet from the ground there is not a branch, and it tapers almost to nothing at all. The trunk contains43,7s2 feet of timbr. Now, New Zealand trees' aie almost all of slow growth, and the first difficulty in a case of this kind is to tell how many centuries the tree has stood since it stopped growing. Taking all we know into consideration, this tree may be 3000 years old, and at all events is not likely to be less than 2000. Think of the wilds of Tararna when the Greeks were beleaguering the City of Troy. It was gaining strength when Soloman dedicated the Temple at Jerusalem. It was a tree when Romulus laid the foundation of the Eternal City. The history of England, with all its rulers—of Britons, Romans, Anglo-Saxons—is but of yesterday compared with the life of this tree, which stands yet, apparently finished in growth, but with no sign of decay about it, as if it could see another 3000 years pass over its head. And yet there are signs of the end, for there are two stout rata vines extending from the ground to the lower branches, and, if time were given, these wmuld grow into a tree and kill the venerable kauri. How long that process would occupy I will not speculate upon.”