<P> The gum varied in color depending on the condition of the original tree . It also depended on where the gum had formed and how long it had been buried . Colors ranged from chalky - white, through red - brown to black; the most prized was a pale gold, as it was hard and translucent . The size of each lump also varied greatly . Swamps tended to yield the small nuggets known as "chips", whereas the hillsides tended to produce larger lumps . The majority were the size of acorns, although some were found which weighed a few pounds; the largest (and rarest) were reported to weigh half a hundredweight . Kauri gum shares a few characteristics with amber, another fossilised resin found in the Northern Hemisphere, but where amber can be dated as millions of years old, carbon - dating suggests the age of most kauri gum is a few thousand years . </P> <P> Most of the gumfields were in Northland, Coromandel and Auckland, the site of the original kauri forests . Initially, the gum was readily accessible, commonly found lying on the ground . Captain Cook reported the presence of resinous lumps on the beach at Mercury Bay, Coromandel, in 1769, although he suspected it came from the mangroves, and missionary Samuel Marsden spoke of their presence in Northland in 1819 . </P> <P> By 1850, most of the surface - lying gum had been picked up, and people began digging for it . The hillsides yielded shallow - buried gum (about 1 m), but in the swamps and beaches, it was buried much further down (4 m or below). </P> <P> Gum - diggers were men and women who dug for kauri gum, a fossilised resin, in the old kauri fields of New Zealand at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries . The gum was used mainly for varnish . The term may be a source for the nickname "Digger" given to New Zealand soldiers in World War I. In 1898, a gum - digger described "the life of a gum - digger" as "wretched, and one of the last (occupations) a man would take to ." </P>

The gum diggers the story of kauri gum