196 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



being determined by the convenience of the contractor ; 

 arid only trees suitable for his purpose being felled. 

 These are generally trees, on an average, a little under 

 two feet in diameter ; and all such are felled, leaving after 

 them but a poor and scraggy crop of growing trees to 

 replace, in course of time, if they can, what has been 

 removed. 



In Norway there is no lack of means for transporting 

 the felled timber by water to the coast. In many places 

 the felled trees, stripped only of their larger boughs, are 

 tumbled into a mountain stream, to be by it borne to the 

 nearest river or lake ; in others, they are shot along arti- 

 ficially constructed slides, leading to some lake or river. 

 These slides are in structure intermediate between the 

 chemins a trainaux and the lan^oirs or glissoires artificiels, 

 used in France. They are about 5 feet wide. Sleepers 

 are laid across the line at about equal distances apart, and 

 upon these are laid, lengthwise, trunks of young trees 

 about 5 or 6 i aches apart, and often so arranged that those 

 at the sides are somewhat higher than those in the middle 

 so as to form a groove of sufficient depth to keep the shot 

 timber in the slide. In some cases these slides run 

 directly down the declivity to the river or lake to which 

 they are destined to convey the timber. In other cases, 

 they run across the side of the hill in a slanting direction. 

 In some places earth is removed to allow of the desired 

 angle of inclination being secured. More frequently this 

 is attained by the slide being supported at places by piles 

 of earth or beams. When necessary, they are carried on 

 supports across small valleys, or watercourses, separating 

 the forest on the one side of a mountain from the forest 

 on the side of another ; and occasionally there may be 

 seen their straight course altered only by an angle more or 

 less abrupt. At such places there is generally raised at the 

 outer angle of the slide a bank against which the trees 

 may strike in their descent and then recoil into the new- 

 direction ; these by the new direction thus given to their 



