Log (river)

“ Often, where the pressure is direct, a few blows only are given with the ax, when the log snaps in an instant with a loud report, followed suddenly by the violent motion of the "jam;" and, ere our bold river-driver is jerked half way to the top of the cliff, scores of logs, in wildest confusion, rush beneath his feet while he yet dangles in air, above the rushing, tumbling mass. ”

“ Three days later a cloud-burst filled the river to the brim; it came at night and swept the river clean of Cardigan's clear logs, An army of Juggernauts, they swept down on the boiling torrent to tidewater, reaching the bay shortly after the tide had commenced to ebb.
Now, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a log-boom is a chaplet of a small logs, linked end to end by means of short chains; hence when the vanguard of logs on the lip of that flood reached the log-boom, the impetus of the charge was too great to be resisted. ”

“ It may be a long and circuitous route, but when one has lost his bearings in the forest, that is generally a safe rule to follow. Also in a lumbered country, where water is the only means of transportation for logs, all log-roads run downhill and ultimately lead to river or lake. We felt reasonably certain, therefore, that if we followed down Roaring Brook and should cross a log-road at any point, it would be quite safe to leave the brook and continue down the log-road. ”

“ The log glided rapidly by, and soon disappeared.
"It is a pine log," said Forester. "There are vast forests of pine trees in this state. They cut down the trees, and then cut the trunks into pieces of moderate length, and draw them on the snow to the rivers. Then, in the spring, the waters rise and float the logs down. This is one of these logs floating down. Sometimes the river is quite full of them."
"Where do they go?" asked Marco.
"Oh, men stop them all along the river, and put them into booms, and then fasten them together in rafts."
"How do they fasten them together?" asked Marco. ”

“ Having accomplished this formidable labour—for the trees had to be cut and hauled, the stone carted, and the earth shovelled—the crew next moved down a good ten miles to where the river dropped over a rapids rough and full of boulders. Here were built and placed a row of stone-filled log cribs in a double row down stream to define the channel and to hold the drive in it and away from the shallows near either bank. The profile of these cribs was that of a right-angled triangle, the slanting side up stream. Booms chained between them helped deflect the drive from the shoals. ”

“ As the logs are floated down from the stationary "drive" above, which, perhaps, fills the river from bank to bank, and extends up the stream as far as the eye can reach, the men whose duty it is to separate the logs catch them as fast as they are floated down to them, hastily glance at the log-mark, mount the log, and, with the aid of the rope stretched from bank to bank, pull themselves and the log to a point directly above the boom of the owner of the log, and then release it, and permit it to be carried by the current into the proper boom. ”

“ The simplest type of float is no doubt the log of light timber used along the north and north-east coast. The straight trunk of a mangrove is selected, and from it a log is cut, about five or six feet long, which is stripped of its branches. Where a river or an estuary has to be crossed, such a log is slipped into the water and the native lays his body over it, lengthwise, with his legs straddling it. ”

“ All of the Indian caches of the lower ramparts, and even further down the river until the Eskimo are encountered, are merely diminutive log-cabins from about four by four to eight by eight, mounted on corner logs so high that one can walk underneath the floor, which is generally made of poles or puncheons. A steep log leans against the door-sill and is cut into steps, to enable the owner to ascend [Pg 292] (see initial piece to this chapter) . ”

“ Their own row-boats are heavy, square at both ends, and clumsy to row, but as I have said, they are out in them in the spring before the floating ice is out of the river, rescuing logs and fragments of lumber from between the ice-cakes.
There is a good deal to the business of picking up logs. The price for returning 26 “strays” to the right owners is ten cents a log (the rate increasing as you go down stream) , and a good many can be towed at once by a small boat. The price per log rises to twenty-five cents, near the sea. ”

“ In the commencement, some unlucky log swings across the narrow chasm, striking some protruding portions of the ledge, and stops fast; others come on, and, meeting this obstruction, stick fast also, until thousands upon thousands form one dense breast-work, against and through which a boiling, leaping river rushes with terrible force. ”

“ She turned suddenly and stretched her right hand over the river which slipped oilily past the wall below, as they stood beside the balustrade of the loggia. "Look!" she said, impulsively. "Do you see that straight white thing floating down the curve of the current yonder? It isn't a log; those others are; plenty of logs come down the rivers from the forests in the hills, for they don't catch all, you know, at the government wood-station. And so the people here catch the runaways in the backwater, and get paid for them. But that--" She paused and her other hand gripped the balustrade hard ”

“ These shallows did the business. When the logs had bumped through the tribulations of the rapids, they seemed to insist obstinately on resting in the shallows, like a lot of wearied cattle. The rear crew had to wade in. They heaved and pried and pushed industriously, and at the end of it had the satisfaction of seeing a single log slide reluctantly into the current. Sometimes a dozen of them would clamp their peavies on either side, and by sheer brute force carry the stick to deep water. When you reflect that there were some twenty thousand pieces in the drive, and that a good fifty per cent. ”

“ Four of them, holding their peaveys across their bodies, jumped lightly from one floating log to another in the zigzag to shore. When they stepped on a small log they re-leaped immediately, leaving a swirl of foam where the little timber had sunk under them; when they encountered one larger, they hesitated for a barely perceptible instant. Thus their progression was of fascinating and graceful irregularity. The other two ran the length of their footing, and, overleaping an open of water, landed heavily and firmly on the very ends of two small floating logs. ”

“ Even overnight, even in a few short hours, a stream has been known to swell from sudden rains or snow, bringing the water with a rush down steep mountain sides and carrying with it the logs that were left strewn on the slopes or near the bank. Men work with feverish haste to roll the logs into the stream. The whole is swept into the dam, the trigger is released at the right moment and the rush of water with its freight of logs sweeps through the open gate with a mighty roar, carrying its cargo for miles on down to the river. ”

“ Along either bank, among the bushes, on sandbars, and in trees, hundreds and hundreds of logs had been stranded when the main drive passed. These logs the rear crew were engaged in restoring to the current.
And as a man had to be able to ride any kind of a log in any water; to propel that log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skillful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft ”

“ These are smooth slimy logs that a white man would find it difficult to sit on if they were on shore, and in this water they would turn with him only once—the log would go one way and the man another. But these fellows are in no fear of the rocks below; they easily guide their barks out of the rushing floods, through the whirlpools and eddies, into the slack shore-water in the rear of the boat, and stand up like men and demand backsheesh. These logs are popular ferry-boats in the Upper Nile ”

“ Six feet by twelve is a fair size. The smaller the logs the larger the raft must be in order to carry any weight, for it must cover a wider surface of water than is [217] necessary for one made of large logs. One good-sized log will carry your weight easily, but a small one will sink beneath you.
If you have two long, strong ropes you can use them for binding the logs together; if not you must make the ropes from fibre of some kind. Daniel C. Beard in his book, "Boat-Building and Boating," tells of making a very strong rope of the inner bark of a chestnut-tree which had been killed by fire. ”

“ Under such circumstances, if there be any grudge to gratify by the foremost crew, or a substantial joke to be put, such truant logs are run aground, into creeks, in meadow land, among the bushes, and on the shore. A crew of thirty or forty men will take a log belonging to another crew and run it up high and dry on to the land, stand it on end, prop it up, and leave it in that position. ”

“ In brook-driving it is necessary to begin early, in order to get the logs into the more ample current of the main river while the freshet is yet up. In some cases, therefore, as a necessary step, the ice in the channel of the brook is cut out, opening a passage of sufficient width to allow three or four logs to float side by side. In forming a landing on the margin of such streams, the trees and bushes are cut and cleared out of the way for several rods back, and a considerable distance up and down, according to the number of logs to be hauled into it. ”

“ They work until it becomes dark, when they walk back to their camps to procure their [Pg 60] suppers and much-needed rest. The log drivers are required to keep the logs floating in the streams. In rainy or cold weather, such as is frequently experienced in the lumbering regions, their work is very arduous and debilitating. It is of the utmost importance that the work of floating the logs out be pushed while there is sufficient water in the streams, many of which become nothing more than creeks later in the season, when dry weather sets in. ”

“ When the troughs are steep, the logs rush down at more than railroad speed, leaving behind them a trail of fire and smoke. Such log-ways are generally to be seen about the lakes, and are so contrived that the logs leap from them into water of great depth, as otherwise they would be shivered to pieces and spoiled for use in the manufacture of lumber. ”

“ One end of the log or stake is thrust in the ground, the other stands upright in the water; the logs are fastened together by means of thin twigs and made tight with reeds, mud and earth, in such a way that one side presents a nearly vertical, firm wall to the stream, while the other side is sloped. ”

“ Immediately, and with feverish activity, the men nearest at hand attacked the work. Logs on top they tumbled and rolled into the current below. Men beneath the breast tugged and pried in search of the key logs causing all the trouble. Others “flattened out the wings,” hoping to get a “draw” around the ends. As the stoppage of the drive indicated to the men up and down stream that a jam had formed, they gathered at the scene—those from above over the logs, those from below up the river trail. ”

“ The valley, reaching for twenty miles in one direction, and thirty in the other, with an average width of about ten miles, lies beneath you, level in the centre, and gradually sloping on every margin up to the mountains that bound it in. Immediately underneath you, Logan spreads out its breadth of farm-land and orchard and meadow, with the river—or rather two rivers, for the Logan forks just after leaving the canyon—and the canal, itself a pleasant stream, carrying verdure and fertility into every nook and corner. ”

“ The perils of "stream-driving" on a bad river have been dwelt upon, I suppose, by every writer who has occupied his pen at all with the life of the lumber-camps. But to the daring backwoodsman there seldom falls a task more hazardous than that of cutting loose a brow of logs when the logs have been piled in the form of what is called a "rough-and-tumble landing." Such a landing is constructed by driving long timbers into the mud at the water's edge, below a steep piece of bank. ”

“ The ice-locked lakes and rivers were once more open, and now the accumulated logs that had been placed on the icy lakes and streams were floating with the current to the city mills.
After several hours traveling through a rough and new country, parts of which were cut over lands, scenically uninviting, the party arrived at the point of the river where the men, who, in the parlance of the loggers are called "riverpigs," were at work. In midstream the men were sacking logs with peavey, or directing with pike pole. ”

“ The great pines crash before his axe; their heads are lopped of; and they are rolled down the slopes into the tediously-filling dam. For the whole summer this work goes on, till all the trees which can be rolled or dragged there are jostling one another in this artificial lake, and the water of the streamlet no longer collects, but squanders itself over the top of the log sluice-gate. And then comes the moment for the realisation of his labours, and the moment to see whether the engineering of the work has been true. The sluice-gate of logs is knocked away ”

“ The immersion of logs in water also improves the quality of the lumber, as the action of the water upon the sap prevents to some degree the tendency to decay, and also facilitates the seasoning of the manufactured product. If the log is left in the water until it becomes water-logged, it will sink, and while it is not injured for many purposes, the wood loses some of the strength which it is supposed to have. In many localities, the salvage of sunken logs has become an industry. ”