IV. 



A RIVER IN THE FOREST LIFE "DRIVING THE RIVER." 



Backwoods, June 6. 



/ 



Dear H- 



Did you ever witness a log driving ? It is one of 

 the curiosities of the backwoods, where streams are 

 made to subserve the purpose of teams. On the 

 steep mountain side, and along the shores of the brook 

 which in spring time becomes a fiery torrent, tearing 

 madly through the forest, the tall pines and hemlocks 

 are felled in winter and dragged or rolled to the brink. 

 Here every man marks his own, as he would his 

 sheep, and then rolls them in, when the current is 

 swollen by the rains. The melted snow along the ac- 

 clivities comes in an unbroken sheet of water down, 

 and the streams rise as if by magic to the tops of their 

 banks, and a broad, resistless current goes sweeping 

 like a live and gloomy thine through the deep forest. 



