Subsequent to this there was very considerable falling off in the export. The number of diggers decreased, fields were declared worked out, and it was thought that the supplies were exhausted. But after a year or two, it was discovered that gum existed in many places where its presence had been hitherto unsuspected; and it was also made clear that large deposits were often underlying the two or three feet of surface-soil previously worked, on the fields it was thought were exhausted.
A fresh impulse was given to gum-digging, and the amount of the export rose again. In 1878, it stood at 3410 tons; in 1879, at 3247 tons; in 1880, as much as 5500 tons was shipped, valued at £236,500. From 1853 to 1880 inclusive, about 70,000 tons were sent out, export value £2,100,000. It would thus seem that kauri-gum is more plentiful now than ever, while its average value has risen to £43 per ton.
Some American scientist has given it as his opinion that the kauri-gum exported from 1840 to 1880 must have required a forest-growth of ten thousand years to have produced it; but then we know that scientists will go making these rash assertions on the very vaguest premises. How long ago the kauri forests that covered the now open fern-lands died out, it would be hard to say. And how long they had stood before that is an equally difficult problem to solve. Of the trees in the forests now standing we can easily calculate the age. Some of them were already big trees at the period when Julius Cæsar was colonizing the other Britain. Doubtless the forests here were pretty much what they are to-day, when Norman and Saxon and Dane were fighting for the throne.
Gum-diggers receive an all-round price for the gum they bring down to the stores, which fluctuates somewhat in amount. It usually averages about £30 a ton. Before reaching its final market, the gum is cleaned, picked, and carefully assorted and re-assorted into six or eight different classes. The very best of these has been known to sell at £144 per ton in New York; the others at varying prices down to £25 or £20 for the lowest class. The average price is now £43 per ton.
The use to which kauri-gum is put is the manufacture of varnish. At least this is the general theory. It is made into a varnish much resembling that of copal; and gum copal, as the reader will remember, is the product of the Hymenea verrucosa of tropical Eastern Africa, where it is dug from the ground much as kauri-gum is here.
Varnish-making is the assigned use of kauri-gum, but there is a dark suspicion afloat in our Brighter Britain that this is not the only nor the chief one. It is hinted that the Yankees use it to adulterate something or other with, or to fix up some compound of a wholly different kind. I will not say that O'Gaygun is solely responsible for this insinuation, but he certainly fosters it in every way he can.
In the mind of our Milesian ally there exists a profound belief that the principal object in life of an American is to invent new and profitable ways of adulteration, or to discover means of perfecting colossal shams, and thereby defrauding a guileless public, such as ourselves.
For my own part, I disagree with O'Gaygun on this point. Experience has led me to believe that the English manufacturer and trader stand unrivalled in all the arts of adulteration. The Yankee is a babe compared to them at this game. In fact, so far as exports are concerned, it would seem as if the British merchant could not help a greater or lesser measure of chicanery. What the Yankee sends to us is generally good; this in other matters besides hardware.
But O'Gaygun's views are warped, and his conclusions are mainly drawn from the remembrance of one incident, the tale of which he is never weary of narrating.