266 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



He and his company have been se- 

 curing and will continue to secure an 

 almost incredible amount of lumber 

 from the bottom of the river. In the 

 last two years alone he has secured 

 50,000 logs. Of this astonishing num- 

 ber, 24,000 were raised in the vicinity 

 of Big Rapids. The rest have been 

 taken at different points between 

 Maple Island and Muskegon, where his 

 mill is located. At these points, aside 

 from Big Rapids, the logs are raised by 

 a machine known as a log lifter, which 

 is practically a scow fitted up with the 

 proper machinery. When the dam was 

 removed at Big Rapids the water ran 

 off. It was then a simple matter to 

 haul the logs out of the muddy river 

 bed to the bank, where they are left to 

 dry- A section of these drying logs 

 is shown in the accompanying photo- 

 graphs. An enormous number has al- 

 ready been removed. It is almost im- 

 possible to ascertain what can yet be 

 done. A capable and conservative man 

 who has investigated the matter does 

 not hesitate to say that there are more 

 than 600,000,000 feet of logs in this 

 stream and its tributaries. No one 

 knows what may yet be obtained from 



the small river Manistee. Some state 

 that more than 40,000,000 feet have al- 

 ready been raised. It is said that some 

 of the islands are founded on a mass 

 of logs that extend to an unknown 

 depth. 



What careless accounting there must 

 have been, to allow 600,000,000 feet of 

 lumber to become stranded in the river 

 with nobody even to attempt to recover 

 it, or perhaps even to know of it. The 

 owners of these thousands of logs must 

 in those days have known of the short- 

 age, but they seem to have been satis- 

 fied if they secured 75 per cent, and left 

 25 per cent- to vanish. Such reckless- 

 ness is suggestive of the wholesale 

 slaughtering of the wild pigeons. At 

 one time flocks of pigeons were so 

 numerous and so crowded that they 

 consumed a whole day in passing over 

 a given point, and darkened the land- 

 scape. Such great flocks were caught 

 in nets and slaughtered by the thou- 

 sand as food for hogs. The pigeons 

 have been exterminated ; and a short- 

 age in lumber is beginning to be felt. 



Old-time lumbermen tell of charac- 

 ters once famous among them. One 

 particularly is cited in a cordial way as 



ALL THE RIVER LOGS BEAR THEIR OWNER'S IDENTIFYING NUMBERS OR MARKS. 



