RELICS OF FOREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 May 1921, Page 11

RELICS OF FOREST.

KAURI LOGS AT PAPAKURA. ' • REMAINS OF HUGE TREES. ’ Probably the most impressive remains j of the old-time kauri forests of AuckL land province within easy reach of the city are those to be found in the drained swamp country immediately northi west of Papakura township (says the , Herald). In that locality must have r stood for many ages one of the greatest , forests on the island. The area over which evidence of the existence of gigantic trees can be traced extends to very many thousands of acres. At pre. sent the greater part of the old-time swamp lands are covered with smiling farms, but in reclaiming their land from the swamp the settlers have taken enormous quantities of kauri logs, and corresponding values in gum, from the soil. On the farm of Mr. J. H. Hansch, however, there can still be seen a considerable range of country in something nearer the state in which it was found at the beginning of European civilisation. In one large paddock not yet brought into cultivation there are innumerable large kauri logs lying, though great quantities have been hauled out for milling purposes; and the frameworks of taproots still in the ground acccftint for acres of great trees that must have been from 10 to 15 feet in diameter. And this, ■so the old settlers relate, was the condition of the rest of Mr. Hansch’s property and farms of his neighbors before the land was cleared and broken in. Accounts are given of one monster of the swamp, which had been burned to the water level at the time of European settlement. and showed at that level a flat top 27ft in diameter. Unlike the settlers of the Northern districts, those at Papakura find the kauri timber taken from their swamp land excellent material for building pur. poses, so long as it is matured properly before being sawn into planks or weatherboards. If worked into boards before seasoning, it is liable to warp, but provided that the heart portion is allowed to lie for a reasonable time, or eawn into junks of moderate size and then exposed to the sun, it can be worked down into boards as durable as timber taken from modern kauri forests. In proof of this, many of the houses in the district have been erected of swamp kauri, and after 12 or 15 summers are still apparently as good as the day they were built. An interesting feature of the discoveries made by gumdiggers in the Papakura swamp area is that underneath the great. forest of which the remains are now just under the surface, there was yet another forest, which must necessarily have existed at a period so remote as to baffle calculation. Indeed, it is related that in one part of the swamp a settler once started to sink a well, and after getting down for 60ft found it impossible to go further, owing to the thickness of the timber that was still found underfoot.