OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 309 
wide and the current more moderate, and there they are 
caught by a boom, which is made by driving a heavy pile into 
the bank on each side, and chaining a large and long log to it. 
These two logs are chained together at their lower ends, and 
thus hold all the logs coming down from above. The boom 
logs may be three or four feet in diameter, and seventy-five feet 
inlength. A little stream, a foot deep and three feet wide in 
the summer, will increase its volume of water a hundred-fold 
in winter, and carry down logs ten feet in diameter. Such a 
brook often supplies five million feet (board measure) of logs 
in a season. 
There is no place in the world where the average thickness 
of the logs sawn in the saw-mills, is so large as in Humboldt 
county, and the mills are built with special reference to the 
size of the logs. The frames are made very large and strong, 
and the saws are of proportionate length. The saws used in 
the mills are of four kinds: the single-gate saw, the gang-saws 
in. a gate, the muley-saw, and the circular saw. The single- 
gate saw is fastened in a frame or gate, which plays up and 
down. This saw is used for sawing small logs, and is not 
found in very large mills. The gang-saws are a set of saws 
fastened in a frame parallel to each other. In some gangs 
there are twenty-four saws side by side, and they cut a log 
into boards at one movement. The gang-saws move slowly and 
make smooth lumber. All the boards, plank, joists, rafters, 
and studding, are cut with gang-saws. Th: largest Icgs cut 
with gang-saws are not more than three feet and a half through. 
The muley-saw is an upright saw, which is fastened at the 
lower end to a shaft connecting with the steam-engine or 
water-power, and the upper end is loose, though it plays in a 
groove to keep it straight. The muley is used for cutting the 
largest logs into bolts, and taking off slabs, so as to reduce 
the logs to a size suitable for other saws to work upon. The 
muley-saw makes three hundred strokes in a minute, whereas 
the gate-saw makes only about one hundred. The gate of 
a gate-saw large enough to saw logs nine feet in diameter, 
