REDWOOD LUMBERING. 67 



down which the lumber scurries away to the wharf below, 

 there to be sorted and piled, and loaded upon ships or cars or 

 wagons, and started out on its mission among men. To the 

 visitor, at least, all this, and much more that can hardly be de- 

 scribed, makes the most perfect state of confusion imagina- 

 ble ; and yet the business goes on as smoothly as possible, 

 and men work away as quietly as if they had no such thing 

 as ears or nerves." 



CREW AND WAGES. 



The number of men employed at the redwood saw-mill 

 vary according to the size of the mill and its capacity for 

 manufacturing lumber. The product, per day, of the largest 

 mills ranges from fifty to sixty thousand feet, although where 

 the logs are not so large as to cause inconvenience in hand- 

 ling, from seventy to eighty thousand feet per day is of 

 common occurrence. 



In these mills from sixty to sixty-five men are em- 

 ployed. In mills having a cutting capacity of 30,000 to 

 40,000 feet per day, an average of thirty-five men are em- 

 ployed. 



The shingles cut from redwood timber at mills built 

 especially for that branch of lumbering, in addition to those 

 connected with nearly every saw-mill, figure largely in the 

 drain upon the forests. And to these may be added the 

 " shake," or the three-feet shingle mills. Mills built especial- 

 ly for the manufacture of shingles or " shakes," buy their 

 stock in bolts from small timber owners, or supply them- 

 selves from a claim of their own. These mills employ di- 



