424 COMPARISON OF MODES OF TRANSPORT. 



transport it necessitates, and also on the distance over which 

 it has to be transported. In plains and low mountain-ranges 

 there can be no question of any loss of wood during cartage or 

 sledging on good roads, or in transport on tramways ; this is 

 also generally true for log- sliding. There are also well-regu- 

 lated floating-channels on which scarcely any loss of wood is 

 experienced. In the higher mountain- ranges, however, where 

 usually several modes of transport are combined, where there 

 is an insufficiency of good roads, where the floating-channels 

 are impeded by rocks and boulders, and where wood must pass 

 over long slides or be thrown down chutes, it is evident 

 that loss of volume is unavoidable, in spite of every precaution. 

 By the loss of bark (which for timber forms 10 to 15 per cent, 

 of the whole volume) chiefly by friction during the process of 

 landing, or of wood sticking on rocks, etc., or sinking in the 

 stream in such cases and where a long distance is floated 

 over the loss of volume may be considerable and reach 10 to 

 20 per cent., or more. 



[In India, a good deal of floating timber is stolen : between 

 1884 and 1886, 3,200 railway-sleepers were stolen from the 

 Tons river, one side of which is not in British territory, out 

 of 100,000 sleepers floated. There is also much scourage, 

 owing to the rocky nature of river-beds, and railway- sleepers 

 intended to measure 6 feet by 8 inches by 4 inches are cut 

 6J feet by 8J inches by 4| inches to allow for this. Tr.] 



In order to give an idea of the loss of volume in high moun- 

 tain-districts, the results recorded for the Eamsau forest range, 

 near Berchtesgaden, will be given. Here, as in most mountain 

 forest ranges, all modes of transport are used, and late in the 

 spring the wood is thrown down chutes (p. 278) ; the conse- 

 quent loss of volume, varying with the length of the fall 

 and the nature of the ground, is not less than 2 per cent., 

 but not more than 12 to 15 per cent., for were it greater than 

 the last figure, the utilisation of this unfavourably situated 

 forest must be abandoned. Once the wood has thus gone a 

 certain distance it is conveyed further by means of slides, 

 roads, or floating-channels. In sliding, if the slides are not 

 interrupted by chutes, there is little loss, scarcely more than 

 1 per cent, on fairly good slides, but if the slides are very 



