LOGGING A RIVER BOTTOM 



671 



dry. A section of these drying logs 

 is shown in the accompanying photo- 

 graphs. An enormous number has al- 

 ready been removed. It is almost im- 

 possible to ascertain what can yet be 

 done. A capable and conservative man 

 who has investigated the matter does 

 not hesitate to say that there are more 

 than (100,000,000 'feet of logs in this 



age, but they seem to have been satis- 

 lied if they secured 1 "> per cent and left 

 '!'* per cent to vanish. Such reckless- 

 ness is suggestive of the wholesale 

 slaughtering of the wild pigeons. At 

 one time flocks of pigeons were so 

 numerous and so crowded that they 

 consumed a whole day in passing over 

 a given point, and darkened the land- 



ALL THE RIVER LOGS BEAR THEIR OWNERS IDENTIFYING NUMBERS OR MARKS. 



stream and its tributaries. Xo one 

 knows what may yet be obtained from 

 the small river Manistee. Some state 

 that more than 40,000,000 feet have al- 

 ready been raised. It is said that some 

 of the islands are founded on a mass 

 of logs that extend to an unknown 

 depth. 



What careless accounting there must 

 have been, to allow ('$00,000,000 feet of 

 lumber to become stranded in the river 

 with nobody even to attempt to recover 

 it, or perhaps even to know of it. The 

 owners of these thousands of logs must 

 in those days have known of the short- 



scape. Such great flocks were caught 

 in nets and slaughtered by the thousand 

 as food for hogs. The pigeons have 

 been exterminated ; and a shortage in 

 lumber is beginning to be felt. 



Old-time lumbermen tell of charac- 

 ters once famous among them. One 

 particularly is cited in a cordial way as 

 Dr. Blodgett, commonly known as the 

 "Doc," a nickname given to him when a 

 young man. Long ago he was laid away 

 to rest with other prominent lumber- 

 men, such as Ryerson, Hill and Charles 

 II. Hackley, who accumulated upwards 

 of $9,000,000. Few people have done 



