436 WOOD-DEPOTS. 



various sluice-gates and gratings, and be instructed carefully 

 in the manner of landing the wood. 



Wherever the wood has to be dragged up to the depot, 

 different methods of doing so are followed for sawmill butts 

 and firewood. Butts are either rolled up the river-bank, or 

 dragged up an ascending slope by horses or by machinery 

 worked by the driving-wheel of a sawmill. Firewood billets 

 are either spiked by a floating-pole and thrown upon the river- 

 bank, or passed from hand to hand by a chain of workmen. 



In some places machines are used for landing firewood. 

 These machines consist of two horizontal rollers, one of which 

 is alongside the water, and the other up on the bank of the 

 stream. Two chains bound together link by link, and pro- 

 vided at short intervals with projecting iron hooks, are passed 

 round the rollers ; the billets of wood are then placed on these 

 hooks, whilst the chains are set in motion by the upper roller ; 

 the hooks ascend the river-bank with the billets, which fall 

 off as they reach the upper roller.* These machines are 

 specially useful when the depot is situated on a high, steep, 

 sloping river-bank. 



3. Methods of Storing Wood. 



The landed billets are conveyed to the stacking-yard in low 

 tramcars or wheelbarrows, the round pieces being split pre- 

 viously ; they are then stacked, beginning at a point in the 

 depot the furthest removed from the water. In stacking, great 

 care must be taken not to occupy too much space, to leave suffi- 

 cient room for ventilation between the different stacks and erect 

 the latter in a stable manner. With this object, the stacks of 

 firewood are placed in long rows, in the direction of the prevail- 

 ing wind, and made as high as their stability will permit. This 

 is rarely higher than fifteen to eighteen feet. In erecting a 

 stack, first the base is prepared as in Fig. 291, in order to keep 



* On the river llz near Passau, there are ten of these machines which save 

 40 % of the former cost of manual labour for landing the firewood. 180 to L'oo 

 stacked cubic meters (100 to MO loads) of wood c;ui bo raised thus iu a day. 

 At Hals, also on the Ilz, similar machines worked by steam-power are used for 

 raising butts up to the depot, 8 meters (2(5 feet) high. Thus the heaviest kind 

 o!' butts are raised. 



