166 LIFE OP AUDUBON. 



slipped from it their barrelled provisions, assisted by ropes, to 

 their camp below. But no sooner was the first saw-mill erected, 

 than the axemen began their devastation. Trees one after 

 another were, and are yet constantly heard falling during the 

 days, and in calm nights the greedy mills told the sad tale 

 that in a century the noble forests around should exist no more. 

 Many mills were erected, many dams raised, in defiance of the 

 impetuous Lehigh. One full third of the trees have already 

 been culled, turned into boards, and floated as far as Philadel- 

 phia, In such an undertaking the cutting of the trees is not all. 

 They have afterwards to be hauled to the edge of the mountains 

 bordering the river, launched into the stream, and led to the 

 mills, over many shallows and difficult places. Whilst I was in 

 the Great Pine Swamp, I frequently visited one of the principal 

 places for the launching of logs. To see them tumbling from 

 such a height, touching here and there the rough angle of a 

 projecting rock, bounding from it with the elasticity of a foot- 

 ball, and at last falling with awful crash into the river, forms a 

 sight interesting in the highest degree, but impossible for me 

 to describe. Shall 1 tell you that I have seen masses of these 

 logs heaped above each other to the number of five thousand ? 

 I may so tell you, for such I have seen. My friend Irish 

 assured me that at some seasons these piles consisted' of a 

 much greater number, the river becoming in these places 

 completely choked up. When freshets or floods take place, 

 then is the time chosen for forwarding, the logs to the different 

 mills. This is called a 'frolic' Jedediah Irish, who is generally 

 the leader, proceeds to the upper leap with the men, each 

 provided with a strong wooden handspike and a short-handled 

 axe. They all take to the water, be it summer or winter, like 

 so many Newfoundland spaniels. The logs are gradually der 

 tached, and after a time are seen floating down the dancing 

 stream, here striking against a rock, and whirling many times 

 round, there suddenly checked in dozens by a shallow, over 

 which they have to be forced with the handspikes. Now they 

 arrive at the edge of a dam, and when the party has ai-rived at 

 the last, which lies just where my friend Irish's camp was first 

 formed, the drenched leader and his men, about sixty in number, 

 make their way home, find there a healthful repast, and spend 



