Kauri

kow'ri, the native name of a valuable gum tree found in northern New Zealand. It is a coniferous tree. It grows to a height of from 100 to 200 feet. The timber is of value for ship-building and masts. Like the pines of the Carolinas, it yields a valuable resin, known in commerce as the kauri gum. It makes a fine varnish, hardy second to the famous lac of the East. Pieces weighing from a few grains up to thirty or even a hundred pounds are found in a fossil condition in the sands. This fossil kauri suggests the amber of the Baltic coast, to which, indeed, it is evidently closely akin. Fossil kauri is a source of no little income. Ten thousand gum diggers search for it. Six million dollars' worth is sent to London yearly. See Amber; Gum; Lac