126 TIMBER 
covered with a mass of clotted blood marks. The 
mosquito is described as rather harmless and gentle 
in disposition in comparison with the sand-fly, whose 
bite is represented as similar to the thrust of a red-hot 
needle—clothes, blankets and rugs being non-impervious 
to this insect’s attack. 
From the tributary streams the winter-felled logs 
find their way on the currents to main rivers, where, 
under the guidance of the drivers, they are taken down 
towards the mouths where mills are situated. Here the 
driving gang are paid off, and the men, who may be 
described as picturesque in the abstract, commence to 
“blow their wages’ in a similar manner to those first 
employed. 
Many of the most important mills are established at 
Ottawa, this town being undoubtedly the metropolis 
of the Canadian timber trade. From the great water- 
shed of the Ottawa river vast quantities of pine and 
spruce are annually brought down to these mills, where 
they are sorted for the different owners, converted into 
planks, deals, boards and other sizes by modern 
machinery, principally worked by the power of the fine 
falls which exist on the river, and are then transferred 
on the St. Lawrence to Quebec for shipment to the 
different markets of the world. As showing the extent 
of the trade, it may be mentioned that the output from 
the mills at Ottawa and the neighbouring town of 
Hull on the other side of the river, is estimated at about 
300,000,000 ft. of timber per annum. 
The network of railways that intersect the United 
States, after a longer period of development, makes the 
method of extracting timber in that country somewhat 
different from that which obtains in the neighbouring 
Dominion of Canada. The active hustling enterprise 
of the Americans is seen on all sides, even in this industry. 
