34 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



ing of the ice they are pushed into the current, and the 

 contributions of many affluents find their way to the river, 

 which may at the time be covered with the floating masses, 

 which become more or less compactly interlaced, till some 

 projecting rock in the bank or the river bed arresting 

 some, others are impeded and stopped in their course, and 

 ultimately many thousands, it may be, are stopped, and 

 piled up in a confused heap. It is perilous work to break 

 up the piled mass, and set the logs afloat upon the stream 

 again. Elsewhere ' the men employed go about balancing 

 themselves on detached logs in the middle of the stream, 

 pushing on each log by means of a boat-hook, till at last 

 the mass of logs hanging together begins to be disturbed 

 and shake, and then comes the struggle for the men to 

 regain the shore. The skill which the men display in dis- 

 entangling the logs, the agility with which they run about 

 and maintain their balance on the floating logs, as well as 

 on those which are fixed, the intelligence which they apply 

 to the separation and setting afloat again of all those 

 interlaced logs, and, in fine, the courage with which they 

 face all these perils, are all of them worthy of admiration.' 

 The statement is cited from a report by Dr. Brock, a dis- 

 tinguished Norwegian statistician. 



The author of a large work entitled Frost and Fire, to 

 which 1 am indebted for the account of logs performing the 

 Hailing dance below the waterfall on the Torristal river, 

 some distance above Christiansand, tells that after the logs 

 have been launched ' many get waterlogged and sink ; and 

 these may be seen strewed in hundreds upon the bottom, 

 far down in clear green lakes,' and he goes on to say : 



' Many get stranded on the mountain gorges, and span 

 the torrent like bridges ; others get planted like masts 

 amongst the boulders ; others sail into quiet bays, and rest 

 upon soft mud. 



1 But in spring, when the floods are up, another class of 

 woodmen follow the logs and drive on the lingerers. They 

 launch the bridges, and masts, and stranded rafts, help 

 them th rough the lakes, and push them into the stream ; 



