224 CONVERSATIONS ON THB 



water, so that the logs might slide down ; and 

 he did it too." 



"Oh, Uncle Philip, what a monstrous 

 trough that must have been ! What did he 

 make it of?" 



" Of trees ; and you may judge of the size 

 of it when I tell you that it took twenty -five 

 thousand large pines : it was six feet wide, 

 four feet deep, and forty-four thousand feet 

 long ; it had to be brought over rocks and 

 valleys, and deep chasms ; but Mr. Rupp was 

 a persevering man, and industrious, too, as 

 well as ingenious, and he finished it in little 

 more than a year and a half; then what a 

 sight it must have been to see the great trees 

 sliding down into the lake ! The largest and 

 heaviest went the whole distance in six min- 

 utes ; they plunged down into the water with 

 such speed and power that they would go 

 sometimes a mile before they came up again : 

 and once when a tree, on its way down, 

 struck against a knot or some other obstruc- 

 tion in the bottom of the trough, it flew out 

 with such force as to strike down great pines 

 as though they had been struck by a cannon- 

 ball." 



"What a curious contrivance that was, 



