LOGGING MAHOGANY IN TROPICAL WEST AFRICA 



141 



skidders, yarding engines, pole roads ; tramways, rail- 

 ways, slides and other devices known to the logging 

 fraternity ? 



Let us take it for granted that this matter has been 

 given merited investigation and the use of the known 

 methods found unsuited and not adaptable to the condi- 

 tions. If there were real forests of mahogany, or if the 

 trees could be found in groups or in ridges or in numbers 

 in any locality, as is the case with the timber in tem- 

 perate zones, modern, up^to-date methods might be used 

 in logging. Of the mahogany tree, it may be said that 

 it is "lost in an impenetrable forest." 



Surrounded bv hundreds of trees of different kinds 



culty in landing from the steamer, and the almost im- 

 possible fact of moving it to the work, all this and many 

 other expenses incident to the environment, make the 

 man power most economical. Logs to be hauled, whether 

 flattened on one side or squared, are leveled or rounded 

 at the end in form like a sled runner, to slide more 

 easily over the round skids laid across the road and four 

 to six feet apart. 



The hauling line is a one and one-quarter inch rope, 

 attached to the log as shown en the photograph "taken 

 by our own artist on the spot." 



Determined to make some advancement over the meth- 

 ods in vogue when David was gathering material for the 



MAHOGANY LOGS SQUARED FOR THE ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL MARKETS 



The work of getting out the heavy timber from the wood to the seacoast and the steamer has to be done by man and animal 

 power owing to the nature of the country and the distance from European or American sources of supply. 



and of all sizes, these magnificent monarchs of the woods 

 stand ajiart from other members of the family and sel- 

 dom more than three or four trees near together, and 

 more often standing alone with no other mahogany tree 

 in sight. In fact, the trees to be felled are so scattering 

 that roads must be built to each one, and so few in num- 

 ber that the cost of setting up logging machinery and 

 moving it as the timber supply within its reach was ex- 

 hausted, would deliver it to the banking ground by the 

 primitive method, then the cost of the machinery, diffi- 



building erected later by Solomon, the writer decided on 

 experimenting with the caterpillar which lays its own 

 track, as it crawls along over softish ground and minor 

 obstacles. Had just succeeded in getting everything in 

 shape for a thorough working tryout, when "grimvisaged 

 war upreared his wrinkled front." Native labor became 

 an uncertain quantity ; cargo steamers were comman- 

 deered, the caterpillar ceased crawling, and this method 

 'of logging in tropical West Africa is still in the experi- 

 mental stage. 



