se) REPORT ON THE TIMBERS OF THE 
any length demanded by their customers. The finest timbers 
on Clark river are hickory and white oak; but a green hickory 
or white oak log, forty to sixty feet in length, will not float 
and it takes great buoying power to keep it up. Not only is 
Clark river too shallow for such logs, but it is not wide and 
open enough to allow the passage of rafts large enough to 
support them. On the Tennessee river, a wide raft of tens 
of thousands of feet is formed, in which such logs as these 
alternate with seasoned poplar, which is sufficiently buoyant 
to support the whole. The stream is broad and deep enough, 
and has sufficient fall to allow of the easy transportation of 
these enormous rafts. Of course the only way out of the 
difficulty is to form small rafts, of only a few logs; but as it 
is comparatively a good deal more expensive to float a small 
raft than a large one, we need not expect to see much 
demand for the Clark river timbers, until those along the 
Cumberland and Tennessee rivers have become sufficiently 
scarce and inconvenient of access to render the cost of pro- 
curing them as great as that of floating the Clark river tim- 
bers. 
TIMBER VARIATIONS. 
The timbers in this part of Kentucky differ very little, in 
kind, from the timbers on the older formations of the State. 
The only new timber met with is the cypress (bald cypress), 
which is now found immediately on the banks of all the 
Jarger streams, on all marsh lands and swampy grounds. 
Its presence is not due to the formation, for it appears else- 
where from New Jersey southward, on various formations. 
Wh it does not appear in other parts of Kentucky, I do 
not know, unless it be that a low, level, moist country is 
required for its growth. But changes of timbers are often, 
so far as can be discovered, capricious. Magnolias are 
found in great abundance on the upper Cumberland; down 
towards the Ohio I have not met with a single one. So it 
may be, so far as regards geological formations, with the 
cypress. The timber is light, fine-grained and durable, and 
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