THE FALLS OF KEEWASH. 33 



there these mountaineers, floating on to be sawn up, form 

 themselves into a solemn funeral procession which extends 

 for miles ; and it may be noticed that the course of this 

 stream of floats is always longer than the course of the 

 river's bed ; for the water is slowly swinging from side to 

 side as it flows, and the floats show the course of the 

 stream and its whirling eddies.' 



It was from the banks of the river at the side of the fall 

 that I got my best view of the cataract. Immediately 

 above the fall lay moored a long raft of logs ready to be 

 shot. We were informed of this before leaving Petroza- 

 vodsk, and a hope was expressed that we might see it done, 

 but in this we were disappointed ; and it was a disappoint- 

 ment, for this is always an exciting scene. I had visited 

 the locality described in the passage cited, and here was 

 everything combined to produce a similar scene the 

 waterfall and the basin below. I had, however, to rest 

 satisfied with imagining what the scene would have been. 



I have found few things in connection with forestry 

 more exciting than incidents connected with the flotage 

 of timber. 



On the Glommen, in Sweden, I have seen hundreds and 

 thousands of logs floating down the river separately, to be 

 collected and arranged according to the owners' marks 

 upon them at a depot at a lower level. The breadth of 

 the river, compared with the size of these logs, suggested 

 the idea of some boys having emptied into a brook a 

 hundred or a thousand boxes of matches, and of these 

 being floating away. At any little fall of three or four 

 feet, there they came tumbling down, sometimes sideways, 

 sometimes slanting, and sometimes head foremost, and 

 kicking up their heels in the air. Occasionally in some of 

 the rivers in Norway the trees floated thus accumulate, and 

 become so interlaced that further progress is impossible. 



There, as elsewhere, logs are transported from the spot 

 where they are felled to the banks of the nearest stream, 

 and marked with the initials of the owner. On the melt- 



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