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Browse the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

KAURI GUM

Contents


Mining for Gum

A primitive apparatus, used in 1915, to extract fragments of gum from the soil, consisted of an iron tank with a perforated base, and a paddle on a shaft in the centre. Gum-bearing soil was shovelled into the tank, water poured in, and the paddle worked by hand until most of the soil had broken up and passed through the holes in the bottom of the tank. The remaining material was thrown into a heap, dried and hand-winnowed, to remove any fibrous matter, and the gum collected. Subsequently more elaborate forms of this “hurdy-gurdy” were used. A large machine was designed by C. Suttie to work swamp material, and was used near Dargaville. At Poroporo a steam plant was employed, and near Awanui a dredging plant installed. The vacuum-salt process, invented by J. S. Maclaurin, was recommended by the Kauri Gum Commission in 1921 as being the most efficient method evolved to remove dirt and foreign matter from kauri gum.