Part 2 (1/2)

The geared engine has also been used as a subst.i.tute for cable power, in ”yarding” operations. The ”turns” of logs are drawn over the ground between the rails, being fastened to the rear of the engine by hook and cable. This has proved to be a very economical use of power and plant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29. Donkey Engine Yarding.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30. Giant Raft. In the background is a completed raft; in the foreground a cradle in which a raft is being built.]

Another method of traction where the woodland is open enough is with a traction engine. The ones employed have sixty to one hundred horse power. The great logs may be placed on wood rollers, as a house is when moved, or the logs may be hauled in on a low truck with broad wheels. The ”tractor” hauls the log direct to the railway if the distance is not too great.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 31. Snow Locomotive. Takes the place of 12 teamsters and 12 horses. Minnesota.]

In Northern Michigan a ”snow locomotive,” Fig. 31, is coming into use, which has tremendous tractive power, hauling one hundred to one hundred fifty tons of lumber over snow or ice. It moves on runners, but there is between them a large cylinder armed with teeth. This cylinder can be raised or lowered by the operator as it moves over the surface of the ground. The teeth catch in the snow or ice, and since the cylinder is heated by the exhaust steam, it melts and packs the snow for the trucks following it. The drum is six feet in diameter, with walls an inch and a half thick, and it weighs seven tons. It is used in all sorts of places where horses cannot go, as in swamps, and by subst.i.tuting wheels for runners it has even been used on sand.

In the Canadian lakes there has been devised a queer creature called an ”alligator,” a small and heavily equipped vessel for hauling the logs thru the lakes. When its operations in one lake are finished, a wire cable is taken ash.o.r.e and made fast to some tree or other safe anchorage, the capstan on its forward deck is revolved by steam and the ”alligator” hauls itself out of the water across lots to the next lake and begins work there.

The greatest improvement in water transportation is the giant raft, Fig. 30. When such a raft is made up, logs of uniform length are placed together, the width of the raft being from sixty to one hundred feet and its length, one thousand feet or more. It may contain a million board feet of timber. The different sections are placed end to end, and long boom sticks, i. e., logs sixty to seventy feet long, are placed around them to bind the different sections together, and finally the whole ma.s.s is heavily chained. Such a raft has been towed across the Pacific.

LOGGING.

REFERENCES[*]:

River Lumbering.

Pinchot, _Primer_, II, pp. 40-53.

White, _Blazed Trail_, pp. 5-15, 25, 38-39, 52-53, 63-65, 72-85, 91-99, 113-125, 134, 181-196, 216-229, 257, 268, 320-343, 355, 365 ff.

_For. Bull._, No. 34, pp. 33-41, Fox.

White, _Jun. Mun._, 10: 362.

Hulbert, _Outl._, 76; 801.

_Wood Craft_, 4: 55.

Smith, K., _World's Work_, 7: 4435.

Mechanical Methods.

_World's Work_, 7: 4435.

_Outl._, 76: 812.

Bruncken, p. 86.

Bruncken, pp. 76-87.

Munn, _Cosmop._, 37: 441.

Roth, _First Book_, pp. 133-174.

Hovey-King, _Rev. of Rev._, 27: 317.

Jones, _Cosmop._, 15: 63.

Price, _World's Work_, 5: 3207.

_For. Bull._, No. 61.

_Ca.s.sier_, 29: 443, April, '06.

_Cosmop._, 37: 445.