80 



There are now four different methods of steam skidding used. The 

 simplest, applicable to flat lands, consists in snaking the logs over the 

 ground and assembling them at the cars by means of a hoisting engine and 

 drum, a horse returning the rope with a grappling hook or tongs at the end ; 

 the loading is done by a separate rope and drum. 



The distance to which this skidding may be done is, of course, depend- 

 ent upon the length of rope which it is practicable to wind on the drum or 

 drums and to have the horse return. Usually this is not more than 800 to 

 1,500 feet, when the machine may make from 150 to 250 pulls per day, the 

 cost on the average with a crew of eleven men and three mules being about 



By permission, Society of Western Engineers. 



$24 per day, and the output, of course, dependent on the character of the 

 timber and the log size, which determines the number of feet coming with 

 each pull. 



Where the ground is less flat and simple in contour, and where it is 

 preferable to return the rope and grapple automatically, the "slack rope 

 system" may be employed. In this system a wire cable is strung from a 

 head tree near the engine to a stump in the woods, on which travels a car- 

 riage (Miller patent), with a specially designed block (Butler's patent) 

 through which the skidding rope with logging tongs works, so as to allow 

 sidewise extension ; an outhaul rope, running over a separate drum of the 

 hoisting engine, returns carriage and tongs to the woods, where the tong 

 men pull the rope slack and attach the tongs to the logs lying along the line 

 shorter or longer distances, 



