CHAPTER XIV 
SOME NOTES ON THE EXTRACTION OF TIMBER IN 
VARIOUS COUNTRIES 
THERE are few perhaps that realise, on looking around 
on the different varieties of wood that surround us, the 
amount of labour that has been expended on the 
production or the vicissitudes through which these 
timbers have passed in the long journey from their 
native forests to their present location. They probably 
have no conception of the far away forests, sometimes 
hundreds of miles from the confines of civilisation, 
from whence the timber is obtained, nor of the arduous 
tasks of felling and transporting it by various means to. 
shipping points ; they know little about how the latter 
work is effected, sometimes under conditions of almost 
Arctic severity, and at other times in tropical latitudes, 
where from dense-tangled jungles, practically impene- 
trable even to sunlight, the stifling and moisture-laden 
heat is almost unbearable to any but native labour. 
From the simple and primitive means of extracting 
the trifling amount of timber which is obtained from 
English woodlands to the methods in vogue in America, 
Canada and other countries, there is an extensive range, 
and a brief account of one or two may be of interest. 
In most countries the natural and first-used means 
of transporting the timber from the forests to more 
convenient places for conversion and shipment is by 
the utilization of the waterways. Areas of forest land 
contiguous to the main streams are first exploited, 
and, as these become exhausted, further and further 
afield do the timbermen have to travel, until tributary 
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