EXPORT TIMBER TRADE. 17 
When in St. Petersburg I learned that an enterprising 
and successful Russian timber merchant, either with his 
own capital or in combination with others, bad completed 
arrangements for exploiting the forests in the far north 
upon a scale commensurate with those of the British 
Onega Company. The saw-mill was to be erected on the 
White Sea, and the necessary arrangements were being 
made. In these it was contemplated that thirty years 
would be required, and that thirty years would suffice, for 
their contemplated operations. Steam power was reckoned 
to be more economical than water power, for reasons which 
will immediately appear, and it was computed that the 
sawdust would supply the fuel required. As fuel this is 
preferred to the outside slabs of the timber, for this being 
generally damper than the sawdust obtained from the 
cutting-up of the timber, occasioned a waste of heat, and 
the draft of the chimney suffices to keep the sawdust in 
active combustion, though there may be a bed of it three 
feet thick under the boilers, The site of the saw-mill was 
determined by the facilities for getting the cut timber 
removed, The felled timber while uncut could be floated 
to the mill, cut timber must be otherwise transported, and 
there it could be shipped at.once. There was water power 
to be had for nothing at various places nearer to the fell- 
ings ; but then the transport ot the cut material to the coast 
would cost money. The engineer laughed at the idea of 
portable or locomotive saw-mills, and said he had been 
employed in the manufacture of such, and had read flaming 
advertisements of their adaptation for employment in 
clearing out the timber in one district, and then being 
moved on toa second ; and he showed the preposterousness 
of supposing that such a thing could be done there. I knuw 
forests in which it is otherwise ; but I refer to the subject 
to show that facility of transport from the saw-mill is not 
of less importance than facility of transport to the mill, 
and may, as in this case, become a controlling element in 
deciding upon the operations to be undertaken. 
The general arrangement was understood to be that so 
