The operations described above are those common in the lumber regions of the northeast and the Lake States. But special conditions produce special methods. A very effective device where streams are small is the flume, Fig. 23. This is a long wooden trough thru which water is led, and the logs floated end on. It is sometimes many miles long; in one case in California twenty-five miles.
In the South where there is no snow, logs are largely brought out to the railway or river by being hung under immense two-wheeled trucks, called slip-tongue carts, drawn by mules, Fig. 24. The wheels are nearly eight feet in diameter.
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.
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.
