LOSS OF VOLUME. 425 



depends on the configuration of the ground, the mode of 

 transport it necessitates, and also on the distance over Avhioli it 

 has to he transported. In phiins and low mountain-ranges 

 there can he no question of any loss of wood during cartage or 

 sledging on good roads, or in transport on tramways ; this is also 

 generally true for log-sliding. There are also well-regulated 

 iloating-channels on which scarcely any loss of wood is ex- 

 perienced. In the higher mountain-ranges, however, where 

 usually several modes of transport are combined, where there is 

 an insufficiency of good roads, where the floating-channels are 

 impeded by rocks and boulders, and where wood must pass 

 over long slides, or be thrown down chutes, it is evi- 

 dent that loss of volume is unavoidable, in spite of every 

 precaution. By the loss of bark (which for timber forms 10 to 

 15% of the whole volume) chiefly by friction during the process 

 of landing, or of wood sticking on rocks, i^c, or sinking in the 

 stream — in such cases and where a long distance is floated over 

 — the loss of volume may be considerable and reach 10-20 %, 

 or more. 



[lu India, a good deal of floating timber is stolen : between 

 1884 and 1886, 3,200 railway-sleepers wei-e stolen from the Tons 

 river, one side of which is not in British territory, out of 100,000 

 sleepers floated. There is also much scourage, owing to the rocky 

 nature of river-beds, and railway-sleepers intended to measure 

 C)' X 8" X 4|" are cut 6j' x 8^" x 4f" to allow for tiiis. — Tk. j 



In order to give an idea of the loss of volume in high moun- 

 tain-districts, the results recorded for the Ramsau forest range 

 near Berchtesgaden will be given. Here, as in most mountain 

 forest ranges, all modes of transport are used, and late in the 

 spring the wood is thrown down chutes (p. 288) ; the conse- 

 quent loss of volume, varying with the length of the fall 

 and the nature of the ground, is not less than 2 %, but 

 not more than 12 to 15 %, for Avere it greater than the 

 last figure, the utilisation of such unfavourably situated forest 

 must be abandoned. Once the wood has thus gone a certain 

 distance it is conveyed further by means of slides, roads, or 

 floating-channels. In sliding, if the slides are not interrupted 

 by chutes, there is little loss, scarcely more than 1 % on 



