Professor Playfair, who visited this singular work, states, that six minutes was the usual time occupied in the descent of a tree; but that in wet weather, it reached the lake in three minutes. He found it quite impossible to give two successive strokes of his stick to any, even the largest tree, as it passed him. The logs entered the lake with such force, that many of them seemed to penetrate its waters to the very bottom. Much of the timber of Mount Pilatus was thus brought to market; but the expense attending the process rendered it impossible for the speculator to undersell the Baltic merchant, when peace had opened a market for his timber, and so the Slide of Alpnach fell to ruin.
Cutting the Norway Deals.
When the timber is squared before it is exported, it is effected by saw-mills; the manner of proceeding may be illustrated by the treatment of Norway deals. In some cases, the trees are merely roughly-shaped with the axe; but those which are to be made into deals are floated down the mountain-streams to a spot where many collect together, and where a saw-mill is erected. Dr. Clarke thus speaks of one that he visited:—“The remarkable situation of the sawing-mills, by the different cataracts, are among the most extraordinary sights a traveller meets with. The mill here was as rude and picturesque an object as it is possible to imagine; it was built with the unplaned trunks of large fir-trees, as if brought down and heaped together by the force of the river. The saws are fixed in sets parallel to each other, the spaces between them in each set being adapted to the intended thickness for the planks. A whole tree is thus divided into planks, by a simultaneous operation, in the same time that a single plank would be cut by one of the saws. We found that ten planks, each ten feet in length, were sawed in five minutes, one set of saws working through two feet of timber in a single minute.” The deals are afterwards transported by river or canal to seaports.
The Cutting and Transport of Canadian Timber.
The conveyance of timber to market in Canada is a very remarkable instance of commercial enterprise. While standing in the vast pine forests the timber-trees are common property: they acquire money-value only when the axe has been applied to them, and when they have been brought down to a shipping port.
The words lumber and lumbering, which convey no very definite idea to us, have in Canada and the United States a large and important meaning. Lumber is the general name for all kinds of timber, not only while growing in the form of stately trees, but after it is cut down, and even after it has been rudely fashioned into such pieces as may be convenient for shipment. So, in like measure, lumbering may be taken as a general name for all the operations whereby the timber is brought into a marketable state; including the cutting down of the trees; the conveyance to the saw-mills; the sawing them into boards, planks, joists, and other pieces; the forming them into rafts: and the navigating of these rafts down the creeks and rivers to the seaports. All the persons employed in these operations are designated lumberers; and they are subdivided into smaller groups according to the duties they undertake to perform.
As the practice of lumbering has been carried on for a great number of years, all the forests in the vicinity of seaports have been denuded of their trees: and the lumberers have therefore to go far inland to obtain their supply of timber. This occasions one circle of operations to last an entire year, from summer to summer. As the lumberers who dwell in the interior frequently carry on some other occupation, perhaps an agricultural one, they cut down trees in the forest just as it suits their convenience, during the summer and autumn. These trees are either hewn and shaped into balks and beams, or divided into shorter pieces, according as they are to be exported whole, or sawed up into boards and scantlings for the American or Canadian markets.
When a large supply of timber has been thus cut down, and the winter is so far advanced that snow lies on the ground, preparations are made for conveying the timber to some stream or river which flows down to a commercial port. On the banks of such streams saw-mills worked by water-power are erected, and these are employed for cutting up such of the “lumber” as is to be sold in the form of planks. The conveyance to the saw-mills and the operation of sawing occupy together the entire winter season. When snow is on the ground, a stout pair of oxen can drag a log from the forest to the saw-mill; and this method of transport is almost universally adopted, very few horses being employed in this way. Sometimes the saw-mills are constructed in a small creek near the forest, but in other cases they are lower down, on the banks of larger streams; and in this latter case the logs are floated down the smaller streams till they arrive at the larger one, where a dam or barrier is placed across the stream to prevent them from floating beyond the precincts of the saw-mill. The saws are circular in shape. Many of the mills have but one saw in operation; others have groups of parallel saws capable of cutting the log into eight or ten planks at once. Some of the smaller mills are built in so rude and rough a manner, that their cost does not exceed 30l. or 40l.; but if the mill lasts as long as the supply of timber in the neighbourhood, that is deemed sufficient, and a new mill is built when it is found advantageous to shift the quarters farther inland. A small mill with one saw, worked for twenty-four hours, will cut up three or four thousand superficial feet of timber. Men are employed to roll the logs along the gangways to a platform, and place them in a proper position to be acted on by the saw.
During the season of these operations the rivers and streams are frozen up; but in spring, when the melting of the ice renders them navigable, preparations are made for transporting the timber from the mills to the shipping ports. If the mill be on the banks of a small stream, the lumberers make up the logs and planks into rafts, the dimensions of which are suited to the capacity of the stream, and when these reach a larger stream into which the smaller one empties itself, the small rafts are broken up and re-arranged into larger ones; but if the mill be on the banks of the larger stream, the timber is at once made up into the rafts which float down to the shipping port—three or four hundred thousand feet of timber being sometimes conveyed in one raft. Sometimes the streams are too small to admit the rafts to float down them: and in such case they often lie aground for months, until an accidental flooding increases the body of water; or else they have to be broken up altogether, and other means adopted for conveying them to market. The rafts are generally put together very slightly, the value of labour being high, and the lumberers regulating the strength of the raft only in proportion to the distance which it has to float. This distance may vary from fifty to three or four hundred miles. Some one of the lumberers who may happen to be best acquainted with the stream acts as pilot, all the others following his directions in the navigation. The raft moves just as fast as the stream will convey it, be it slow or quick, no acceleration of speed being attempted by sails or oars; so that the time which elapses before the raft reaches its destination depends on many different circumstances. In some instances, where all the circumstances are favourable, the pilot navigates his cumbrous raft night and day without stopping; but if there are difficulties, he directs it into some cove or sheltered place during the night. The men are provided with long poles, by which they can regulate the position of the raft in the stream, keeping it either in the middle of the current or near the bank. The men seldom trouble themselves to make huts or cabins on the rafts: for the weather being spring, and it being optional to them to go on shore when they please, they make very few arrangements for their trip except in provisions. On the St. Lawrence, however, where the French Canadians bring down timber-rafts to Quebec for shipment, the men erect small huts or temporary dwellings on the rafts, since the voyage becomes of a more serious character.
When the rafts reach their destination, the lumber is sold, and the men share the proceeds according to the nature of their stake in the enterprise. This share is one entire year’s earnings, and the final disposal of the timber is therefore a matter of importance. The men then set out on foot to return to the interior, and as the distance they have to travel is sometimes three or four hundred miles, and the summer warmth has arrived, the journey is generally a fatiguing one. The men are not all fellow-labourers in an equal degree, for—as in almost every other kind of commercial enterprise—there must be some one to act as a capitalist, to feed the labourers while they are employed, or others who will supply necessaries in advance. There are storekeepers who purchase an annual supply of provisions, clothing, implements, &c., and retail them out to the lumberers on credit, to be paid for when the sales are effected in the spring, and when the mill-owner has been enabled to pay the wages of the men who felled, transported, and sawed the timber. If any unforeseen accident prevents the raft from reaching the shipping port in a saleable state, or if any other mishap occurs, the whole community share the loss.