402 WOOD TRANSPORT BY WATER. 



possible, take place in fine weather and when the water is 

 clear, so that the bed of the stream may be seen. 



As this inspection serves for settling excessive claims for 

 compensation, it should be made as soon as possible after the 

 previous year's floating is over ; it is also useful to assist the 

 forest-manager in deciding about the suitability or defects of 

 any of the works along the water-channel. It is clear that 

 repairs to these works cannot be postponed till shortly before 

 the floating season ; they must be done, together with any 

 new indispensable works, when the water is low in summer or 

 early in the autumn. The same proviso holds good for 

 clearance of the floating-channel, which is required both in its 

 lower course, where the current is sluggish, and also in its 

 upper course, among rapids and boulders. Whenever it is 

 necessary to expose any portion of the bed of the channel for 

 this purpose, arrangements should be made to procure the 

 necessary stoppage of all mills, etc., for the purpose. The 

 days on which the stream is allowed to run dry are either 

 fixed by law, or secured by compensation to the mill-owners ; 

 only owners of works established on the stream before it was 

 used for floating are entitled to compensation. 



(d) Conduct of the Floating Operations. During winter 

 and early spring the wood is brought to the side of the 

 floating-channel, and placed on its banks in loose stacks. 

 Should there be, as is frequently the case, a narrow valley 

 just below the reservoir dam, so that the wood cannot be 

 washed away laterally, it is frequently placed on the dry bed 

 of the channel ; then the pieces of wood should be scattered, 

 so that when the dam is opened a jam may not arise. 



If, then, all the wood from most of the felling-areas has been 

 brought down, the efficiency of the floating-channel and its 

 works has been ensured, and everything is ready at the 

 timber-depots below for the reception of the wood, the first 

 sweep of wood may be sent down at the right time. A careful 

 choice of the latter is of great importance, and is a matter of 

 days, even of hours. A commencement should be made always 

 in the most remote and weakest of the subsidiary streams, so 

 that the sweep of timber passing through it may come down 

 as soon as possible into the main stream, where progress is 



