OTHER BEANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 307 



land in tlie state open to pre-emption, may be purchased. The 

 himbermen owning claims along the sloughs, drag their logs 

 to the water and tumble them in. Those owning claims along 

 the ravines, at the heads of the sloughs, have a wooden tram- 

 way made by laying down long poles, about six inches in 

 diameter and four feet apart. On this tramway runs a wagon 

 with four wheels, each wheel of solid wood eight inches wide, 

 and from two to three feet in diameter, made of a transverse 

 section of a tree. On this wagon one or two logs are placed 

 at a time, and two mules easily haul the load down hill to the 

 slough, and then haul the empty wagon back again. The 

 slope in these little ravines is very gradual, so there is no diffi- 

 culty either in hauling the load down, or the. wagon up. The 

 thickness of the logs varies from sixteen inches (nothing 

 smaller is sawn) to nine feet. The average thickness is four 

 feet and a half; seven feet is a common thickness in redwood. 

 Of pine and spruce logs the largest are five feet through ; the 

 average thickness is three feet. The greater the thickness of 

 a log, the shorter it is cut. The ordinary lengths of saw-logs 

 are fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-four, and thirty- 

 two feet. Redwood is rarely sawn more tlian twenty feet 

 long ; spruce and pine usually of that length or longer. A 

 good lumberman will cut down a redwood tree three feet in 

 diameter in an hour ; a tree five feet in diameter in three 

 hours and a half ; a tree seven feet in diameter in six hours. 

 Ordinarily two choppers work together, one on each side of 

 the tree, and then, of course, they fell it in half the time that 

 would be required for one man alone. They use the Ameri- 

 can axe and American axe-handle ; the handle being about a 

 foot longer than is used in common chopping. After the tree 

 is down, it is cut into saw-logs with a cross-cut saw, managed 

 by one man. It has been found that one man can make a 

 longer stroke than two, and the length of the stroke is a mat- 

 ter of much importance to " clear the saw," or throw out the 

 saw-dust ; so the handle at one end of the common cross-cut 

 saw is knocked ofi', and it is then held like the ordinary hand- 



