Kauri Gum

To take this photo, I put this piece of Kauri Gum in the sun on the window sill so that the sun would shine through it.
Kauri Gum is a resin produced by the New Zealand Kauri Tree. From the 1840s Kauri Gum was exported to Britain and USA to make vanish. It was dug out of the ground using spears to find the gum.  By the 1930s cheaper material had been invented for making varnish so the price of gum fell and by 1940, the gum industry had come to an end.
I have three small pieces of gum given to me by a friend whose family were gum diggers.