1902-3.] 



Sawdust and Fish Life. 



463 



The owner of the mill furnished the following information : The 

 water passing over the dam is a stream nineteen and a half feet wide, by 

 one and one-half feet deep, and moving two feet per second. This 

 would mean that about sixty cubic feet of water were passing over the 

 falls every second. Add to this, leakage through the dam, mill, and 

 timber slide, estimated as equal to what passes over the dam, or sixty 

 cubic feet more, a total of 120 cubic feet per second. The total water, 

 therefore, passing down the river in July, August and September, would 

 average 10,368,000 cubic feet per day, and weigh 642,816,000 pounds. 



The mill cut an average of 375 logs per day. The logs averaged 

 twelve inches in diameter and were chiefly sixteen feet long, but many 



Sawmill on llie Bonnechere river, a braiicii of the Ottawa. Sawdust and 

 edgings pass into the river from the end of the mill. 



were thirteen feet. Taking the specific weight of wet pine as .75, each 

 log would weigh about 560 pounds. Of this weight about 13 per cent, 

 would pass into the river as sawdust. This 13 per cent, was obtained as 

 the average of five estimates furnished by such lumbermen as E. W. 

 Rathburn, Esq., J. R. Booth, Esq., and W. C. Edwards, Esq. Conse- 

 quently about seventy-two pounds of sawdust would pass into the river 

 from every log cut into inch boards, or a total of 27,000 pounds of saw- 

 dust per day. Expressing this as percentage of water (642,816,000 

 pounds) we get .004 as the percentage strength of sawdust in this water. 



