Popular Science Monthly 



747 



A Tree Which Serves as a Bridge 



CUT near Marslifield, Oregon, in the 

 celebrated Coos Bay region, a 

 fallen forest tree is made to serve the 

 useful purpose of a foot-bridge. The 

 tree — an immense fir — grew handily 



is as tractable as a family nag, but when 

 a city man tries to ride it the craft some- 

 times behaves more like a broncho. 



In appearance it is most primitive. 

 "Something like a dug-out, something 

 like a canoe, something like a flat- 



A giant fir, felled to drop across the stream, furnished this excellent foot-bridge 



enough by the side of a stream, to bridge 

 which under ordinary circumstances 

 would have cost considerable. Once the 

 interested residents hit upon the idea, it 

 was practically no trouble to fell the tree 

 across the stream, trim away the 

 branches and with an adz to flatten the 

 upper surface of the fallen trunk. To 

 make passage over this unusual bridge 

 less hazardous, a hand rail was built 

 through the simple expedient of boring 

 holes in the log for the upright standards 

 to which the fence-like railing was at- 

 tached. The bridge gives complete sat- 

 isfaction and attracts the interest of 

 every newcomer in the vicinity. 



The Ozark Float-Boat 



AMONG the types of 

 J~\. small craft that navi- 

 gate North America's inland 

 waters, one of the most pe- 

 culiar is the Ozark Moun- 

 tain float-boat. The swift, 

 crooked and rocky streams of 

 southern Missouri and north- 

 ern Arkansas have known it 

 for many decades, but at last 

 it is beginning to disaj)pear 

 before the invasion of canoes 

 and small power-boats. Un- 

 der the management of a na- 

 tive "hill billy" the float-boat 



bot-tomed skiff," describes it — yet it is 

 no more than a cousin to any of these. 

 It is made of a few pieces of lumber 

 held together with iron clamps, fash- 

 ioned by the cross-roads blacksmith; 

 in length is twenty feet or more; in 

 width, not much wider amidships than 

 two. It rarely has any seats and scarcely 

 ever knows paint. The sides and ends 

 taper like a canoe's, but the bottom is 

 flat and the passenger, if he is care- 

 ful, may stand up in it when he is cast- 

 ing for bass. 



The craft is called a float-boat be- 

 cause its specialty is going down 

 stream. When it has to be propelled 

 against the current the native lays down 

 his paddle and takes to poling. 



Tlic Ozark float-boat is rough, but it is as tractable as 

 a family nag in the hands of an experc 



