EXPORT TIMBER TRADE. 117 



When in St. Petersburg I learned that an enterprising 

 and successful Russian timber merchant, either with his 

 own capital or in combination with others, had completed 

 arrangements for exploiting the forests in the far north 

 upon a scale commensurate with those of the British 

 Onega Company. The saw-mill was to be erected on the 

 White Sea, and the necessary arrangements were being 

 made. In these it was contemplated that thirty years 

 would be required, and that thirty years would suffice, for 

 their contemplated operations. Steam power was reckoned 

 to be more economical than water power, for reasons which 

 will immediately appear, and it was computed that the 

 sawdust would supply the fuel required. As fuel this is 

 preferred to the outside slabs of the timber, for this being 

 generally damper than the sawdust obtained from the 

 cutting-up of the timber, occasioned a waste of heat, and 

 the draft of the chimney suffices to keep the sawdust in 

 active combustion, though there may be a bed of it three 

 feet thick under the boilers, The site of the saw-mill was 

 determined by the facilities for getting the cut timber 

 removed. The felled timber while uncut could be floated 

 to the mill, cut timber must be otherwise transported, and 

 there it could be shipped at once. There was water power 

 to be had for nothing at various places nearer to the fell- 

 ings ; but then the transport ot the cut material to the coast 

 would cost money. The engineer laughed at the idea of 

 portable or locomotive saw-mills, and said he had been 

 employed in the manufacture of such, and had read flaming 

 advertisements of their adaptation for employment in 

 clearing out the timber in one district, and then being 

 moved on to a second ; and he showed the preposterousness 

 of supposing that such a thing could be done there. I know 

 forests in which it is otherwise ; but I refer to the subject 

 to show that facility of transport from the saw-mill is not 

 of less importance than facility of transport to the mill, 

 and may, as in this case, become a controlling element in 

 deciding upon the operations to be undertaken. 



The general arrangement was understood to be that so 



