A similar mode of transporting timber from the central parts of Germany to the great towns or to the seaports is practised at the present day. Mr. Planché, in his Descent of the Danube, says: “Below this bridge, (at Plattling on the Danube,) the raft-masters of Munich, who leave that city every Monday for Vienna, unite their rafts before they enter the Danube. They descend the Isar upon single rafts only; but upon reaching this point, they lash them together in pairs, and in fleets of three, four, or six pairs, they set out for Vienna. A voyage is made pleasantly enough upon these floating islands, as they have all the agrémens, without the confinement of a boat. A very respectable promenade can be made from one end to the other, and two or three huts erected upon them afford shelter in bad weather, and repose at night.”
But the anonymous author of An Autumn near the Rhine gives a more detailed account of the timber-rafts of Germany, of which we will avail ourselves. A little below Andernach, on the banks of the Rhine, the small village of Namedy appears on the left bank, under a wooded mountain. The Rhine here forms a little bay, where the pilots are accustomed to unite together the lesser rafts of timber, floated down the tributary rivers into the Rhine, and to construct enormous floats, which are navigated to Dordrecht and sold. These machines have the appearance of a floating village, composed of twelve or fifteen huts, on a large platform of oak and deal timber. They are frequently eight or nine hundred feet long, and sixty or seventy in breadth. The rowers and workmen sometimes amount to seven or eight hundred, superintended by pilots and a proprietor, whose habitation is superior in size and elegance to the rest. The raft is composed of several layers of trees, placed one on the other, and tied together. A large raft draws not less than six or seven feet water. Several smaller ones are attached to it, by way of protection, besides a string of boats, loaded with anchors and cables, and used for the purpose of sounding the river, and going on shore. The domestic economy of an East Indiaman is hardly more complete. Poultry, pigs, and other animals, are to be found on board, and several butchers are attached to the suite. A well-supplied boiler is at work night and day in the kitchen. The dinner hour is announced by a basket stuck on a pole, at which signal the pilot gives the word of command, and the workmen run from their quarters to receive their allowances.
The consumption of provisions in the voyage to Holland is almost incredible, sometimes amounting to forty or fifty thousand pounds of bread, eighteen or twenty thousand pounds of fresh meat, a considerable quantity of salt meat, and butter, vegetables, &c., in proportion. The expenses are so great, that a capital of three or four hundred thousand florins is considered necessary to undertake a raft. Their navigation is a matter of considerable skill, owing to the abrupt windings, the rocks and shallows of the river; and some years ago the secret was thought to be monopolized by a boatman of Rudesheim and his son.
The timber of the spruce firs which grow on the sides of the Alps, is considered much finer than that which is produced in other situations; but the inaccessible nature of these Alpine forests long prevented those useful trees from being sent in any great quantity to the market. During our long continental war, however, a bold and skilful plan was invented, by which this timber was procured in abundance. M. Rupp, an enterprising foreigner, constructed an immense inclined plane of wood on the sides of Mount Pilatus, near the Lake Lucerne; its length was eight miles and a half. Twenty-five thousand large pine trees were employed in its construction. These were barked and put together very ingeniously, without the aid of iron. It occupied one hundred and sixty workmen during eighteen months, and cost nearly a hundred thousand francs, or 4250l. sterling. It was completed in the year 1812.
The following description of the slide appeared in a German periodical shortly after its completion:—“This slide has the form of a trough, about six foot broad and from three to six foot deep. Its bottom is formed of three trees, the middle one of which has a groove cut out in the direction of its length, for receiving small rills of water, which are conducted into it from various places, for the purpose of diminishing the friction. The whole of the slide is sustained by about two thousand supports; and in many places it is attached, in a very ingenious manner, to the rugged precipices of granite.
“The direction of the slide is sometimes straight, and sometimes zig-zag, with an inclination of from 10° to 18°. It is often carried along the sides of hills and the flanks of precipitous rocks, and sometimes passes over their summits. Occasionally it goes under ground, and at other times it is conducted over the deep gorges by scaffoldings one hundred and twenty feet in height.
“The boldness which characterizes this work, the sagacity and skill displayed in all its arrangements, have excited the wonder of every person who has seen it. Before any step could be taken in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand trees to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets. All these difficulties, however, were surmounted, and the engineer had at last the satisfaction of seeing the trees descend from the mountain with the rapidity of lightning. The larger pines, which were about a hundred feet long, and ten inches thick at their smaller extremity, ran through the space of three leagues, or nearly nine miles, in two minutes and a half, and during their descent, they appeared to be only a few feet in length. The arrangements for this part of the operation were extremely simple. From the lower end of the slide to the upper end, where the trees were introduced, workmen were posted at regular distances, and as soon as everything was ready, the workman at the lower end of the slide cried out to the one above him, ‘Lachez’ (Let go.) The cry was repeated from one to another, and reached the top of the slide in three minutes. The workman at the top or the slide then cried out to the one below him, ‘Il vient’ (It comes), and the tree was instantly launched down the slide, preceded by the cry which was repeated from post to post. As soon as the tree had reached the bottom, and plunged into the lake, the cry of Lachez was repeated as before, and a new tree was launched in a similar manner. By these means a tree descended every five or six minutes, provided no accident happened to the slide, which sometimes took place, but which was instantly repaired when it did.
“In order to show the enormous force which the trees acquired from the great velocity of their descent, M. Rupp made arrangements for causing some of the trees to spring from the slide. They penetrated by their thickest extremities no less than from eighteen to twenty-four feet into the earth; and one of the trees having by accident struck against another, it instantly cleft it through its whole length, as if it had been struck by lightning.
“After the trees had descended the slide, they were collected into rafts upon the lake, and conducted to Lucerne. From thence they descended the Reuss, then the Aar to near Brugg, afterwards to Waldshut by the Rhine, then to Basle, and even to the sea when it was necessary.
“It is to be regretted that this magnificent structure no longer exists, and that scarcely a trace of it is to be seen upon the flanks of Mount Pilatus. Political circumstances having taken away the principal source of demand for the timber, and no other market having been found, the operation of cutting and transporting the trees necessarily ceased.”[4]