G LOGS.]

I suppose all saw-mills are pretty much alike; those on this coast not
only saw lumber of different shapes and sizes, but they have also planing
and finishing apparatus attached; and in some the waste lumber is worked
up with a good deal of care and ingenuity. But in many of the mills there
is great waste. It is probably a peculiarity of the saw-mills on this
coast, that they must provide a powerful rip-saw to rip in two the larger
logs before they are small enough for a circular saw to manage. Indeed,
occasionally the huge logs are split with wedges, or blown apart with
gunpowder, in the logging camps, because they are too vast to be floated
down to the mill in one piece. The expedients for loading vessels are
often novel and ingenious. For instance, at Mendocino the lumber is loaded
on cars at the mill, and drawn by steam up a sharp incline, and by horses
off to a point which shelters and affords anchorage for schooners.
This point is, perhaps, one hundred feet above the water-line, and long
wire-rope stages are projected from the top, and suspended by heavy
derricks. The car runs to the edge of the cliff; the schooner anchors
under the shipping stage one hundred feet below, and the lumber is slid
down to her, a man standing at the lower end to check its too rapid
descent with a kind of brake. When a larger vessel is to be loaded, they
slide the lumber into a lighter, and the ship is loaded from her. The
redwood is shipped not only to California ports, but also to China and
South America; and while I was at. Mendocino, a bark lay there loading for
the Navigator Islands.

A large part of the lumbering population consists of bachelors, and for
their accommodation you see numerous shanties erected near the saw-mills
and lumber piles. At Mendocino City there is quite a colony of such
shanties, two long rows, upon a point or cape from which the lumber is
loaded.

I had the curiosity to enter one of these little snuggeries, which
was unoccupied. It was about ten by twelve feet in area, had a large
fire-place (for fuel is shamefully abundant here), a bunk for sleeping,
with a lamp arranged for reading in bed, a small table, hooks for clothes,
a good board floor, a small window, and a neat little hood over the
door-way, which gave this little hut quite a picturesque effect. There
was, besides, a rough bench and a small table.

It seemed to me that in such a climate as that of Mendocino, where they
wear the same