hung under immense two-wheeled trucks,
called slip-tongue carts, drawn by mules, Fig. 24. The wheels are
nearly eight feet in diameter.

[Illustration: Fig. 23. Six Mile Flume. Adirondack Mountains, New
York.]

Some kinds of wood are so heavy that they will not float at all, and
some sink so readily that it does not pay to transport them by river.
In such cases temporary railways are usually resorted to.

[Illustration: Fig. 24. Hauling Logs by Mules. Oscilla, Georgia.]

On the Pacific coast, where the forests are dense, the trees of
enormous size, and no ice road is possible, still other special
methods have been devised. On so great a scale are the operations
conducted that they may properly be called engineering feats. Consider
for a moment the size of the trees: red fir ranges from five to
fifteen feet in diameter, is commonly two hundred fifty feet high, and
sometimes three hundred twenty-five feet high. The logs are commonly
cut twenty-five feet long, and such logs often weigh thirty to forty
tons each, and the logs of a single tree may weigh together one
hundred fifty tons. The logging of such trees requires special
appliances. Until recently all the improved methods were in forms of
transportation, the felling still being done by hand with very long
saws, Fig. 25, but now even the felling and sawing of logs in the
forest is partly done by machinery.

[Illustration: Fig. 25. A Twenty-Five Foot Saw used for Crosscutting
Big Logs.]

[Illustration: Fig. 26. Hauling Big Logs by Donkey Engine.]

To work the saw, power is supplied by a steam or gasoline engine
mounted upon a truck which can be taken readily from place to place.
As the maximum power required is not over ten-horse-power, the
apparatus is so light that it can be moved about easily. The saw can
be adjusted to cut horizontally, vertically, or obliquely, and hence
is used for sawing into lengths as well as for felling.

_Falling beds._ Since the weight of a two hundred fifty foot fir is
such that if the impact of its fall be not gradually checked the force
with which it strikes the ground may split the trunk, a bed for its
fall is prepared by the swampers. Usually piles of brush are placed as
buffers along the "falling line" so that the trunk will strike these.
If the tree stands on the hill side, it is thrown up hill, in order to
shorten the fall.

After the felling comes the trimming of branches and knots and
"rossing" of bark, to lessen the f