TRANSPORT AND EXPORT TIMBER TRADE. 199 
Halling dance below the waterfall on the Torristal river, 
some distance above Christiansand, tells that after the logs 
have been launched ‘many get waterlogged and sink ; and 
these may be seen strewed in hundreds upon the bottom, 
far down in clear green lakes,’ and he goes on to say :— 
‘Many get stranded on the mountain gorges, and span 
the torrent like bridges; others get planted like masts 
amongst the boulders; others sail into quiet bays, and 
rest upon soft mud. 
‘But in spring, when the floods are up, another class of 
woodmen follow the logs and drive on the lingerers. They 
launch the bridges, and masts, and stranded rafts, help 
them through the lakes, and push them into the stream ; 
and so from every twig on the branching river floats gather 
as the river gathers on its way to the sea. 
‘Sometimes great piles of timber get stranded, jammed, 
and entangled upon a shallow, near the head of a narrow 
rapid ; and then it is no easy or safe employment to start 
them. Men armed with axes, levers, and long slender 
boat-hooks, start down in crazy boats, and clamber over 
slippery stones and rocks to the float, where they wade 
and crawl about amongst the trees, to the danger of life 
and limb. They work with might and main at the base 
of the stack, hacking, dragging, and pushing, till the whole 
mound gives way, and rolls and slides rumbling and crash- 
ing into the torrent, where it scatters and rushes onwards, 
‘It is a sight worth seeing. The brown shoal of trees 
rush like living things into the white water, and charge 
full tilt, end on, straight at the first curve in the bank. 
There is a hard bump and a vehement jostle; for there 
are no crews to paddle and steer these floats. The dashing 
sound of raging water is varied by the deep musical] notes 
-of the battle between wood and stone. Water pushes 
wood, tree urges tree, till logs turn over and whirl round, 
and rise up out of the water, and sometimes even snap 
and splinter like dry reeds, 
‘The rock is broken, and crushed, and dinted at the 
-water-line by a whole fleet of battering-rams, and the 
