34: THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 



I've often carried double this amount. I'm very 

 strong!" 



Nothing further was said, and the tall cruiser 

 strode off with the rest of us to our stations. 



These cruising stations, indicated by a monument 

 of stones and a witness blaze on a nearby tree, on 

 which the number of the station and the elevation 

 are inscribed, were set every twenty chains along 

 the baseline, beginning ten chains from the first sec- 

 tion corner. Thus the cruiser, starting at a given 

 station and running at approximately right angles 

 to the baseline, in cardinal directions, travelled 

 through the middle of a tier of " forties," or forty- 

 acre section subdivisions. The forty is the unit for 

 timber estimates; and by mapping and estimating 

 for ten chains on either side of his course as he ad- 

 vanced, a man covered a forty-acre tract as often as 

 he paced a quarter of a mile ahead. 



At the end of the outward trip he would offset 

 twenty chains from this line, in a direction parallel 

 to the baseline, and cruise back through the adjoin- 

 ing tier of forties, checking in at the station beyond 

 the one from which he started. Each run, there- 

 fore, disposed of a strip of country ha'lf a mile wide 

 and as long as the character of the running per- 

 mitted. 



On the day of which I speak Bob Moak ran out 

 from stations one and two, Horace took three and 

 four, while Frazer and I went on to station five, 

 where our work began. All were east runs. 



