FLOATING OF TIMBER. 355 



ical configuration and climate of its territory, is especially ex- 

 posed to sJl the evils resulting from the destruction of the forests, 

 but it is only within a few years that the desolation thus produced 

 has been so fully described as to bring it to the general notice of 

 the European pubhc. The methods of transporting timber em- 

 ployed by the lumbermen in the Alps are often more destructive 

 than the baring of the soil. Forests frequently grow in Alpine 

 glens or other mountain localities inaccessible to wheeled vehicles 

 and even to sledges. In such cases, the timber is sent do-svQ by 

 slides, which, if long used, become the beds of new torrents, or 

 is conveyed to larger streams by the method of flotation described 

 on page 305. The Rapport au Conseil Federal sur les Torrents 

 des Alpes Suisses inspectes en 1858-63, Lausanne, 1865, gives a 

 great amount of information respecting this scourge and its 

 causes, among which the practice of flotation is particularly 

 noticed. The account of the damage to the Commune of Campo 

 on the E.ovana, a tributary of the Maggia in the Canton of 

 Ticino, in great part from the eftects of flotation, is most striking. 

 Happort, i., p. Y, 13. The force of the torrent E-ovana has been 

 augmented to such a degree, by baring the soil and by suddenly 



without hindrance to their destination, and this law, which has been a matter 

 of familiar observation among woodmen for generations, is now admitted as 

 a scientific truth. 



Foresters and limibermen, like sailors and other persons whose daily occu- 

 pations bring them into contact, and often into conflict, with great natural 

 forces, have many peculiar opinions, not to say superstitions. In one of these 

 categories we must rank the universal belief of lumbermen, that with a given 

 head of water, and in a given number of hours, a sawmill cuts more lumber 

 by night than by day. Having been personally interested in several sawmills, 

 I have frequently conversed with sawyers on this subject, and have always 

 been assured by them that their imiform experience established the fact that, 

 other things being equal, the action of the machinery of sawmills is more 

 rapid by night than by day. I am sorry — perhaps I ought to be ashamed — to 

 say that my skepticism has been too strong to allow me to avail myself of my 

 opportunities of testing this question by passing a night, watch in hand, 

 counting the strokes of a mUlsaw. More unprejudiced, and, I must add, very 

 intelligent and credible, persons have informed me that they have done so, and 

 found the report of the sawyers abundantly confirmed. A land surveyor, 

 who was also an experienced lumberman, sawyer and machinist, a good 

 mathematician and an accurate observer, has repeatedly told me that he had 

 very often "timed" sawmills, and found the difference in favor of night- 

 work above thirty per cent. Sed qumre. 



