CRUISING 37 



course of the contour used to express that eleva- 

 tion as it extends through the forty which you are 

 mapping. You've got to always remember that a 

 forty is twenty chains square, and get used to the 

 scale of your map. Note how a chain, or five or ten 

 chains look, when you draw them to scale. 



"As for the question of estimates, that, like pac- 

 ing, is a matter of practice. Your figures will all be 

 made on this job from an ocular estimate. You've 

 got an idea from our sample plot work what timber 

 looks like when it runs a thousand, two thousand, or 

 whatever number of feet it does run, to the acre. 

 As you go through each forty you've got to judge 

 the average run for each species in feet board meas- 

 ure and set it down in its proper place in your note- 

 book. The same holds good as regards the descrip- 

 tion, only that's made out for the whole section in- 

 stead of just the forty. 



"But don't expect to learn it all to-day. It will 

 be some time before you get the hang of it. It's 

 just like other lines of work. The only way to learn, 

 once you know what you're trying to do, is to get 

 out and do it!" 



With this he stuck his iron-shod? Jacob's staff in 

 the ground, set up his compass atop with the sights 

 set due East, and off we started. Our course 

 took us almost straight downward for some four 

 hundred feet to a wooded draw in the bottom of the 

 first canyon. Then up again over a ridge a little 

 lower than the main one. Then down again, then 



