AN AUSTRALIAN STUDY OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 47 
_ The first steel road was built in 1876 in Michigan, since when steel logging 
railways and power traction have found favour all over the country. 
‘At is interesting to note that the Shay locomotive was designed for 
logging purposes, by E. E. Shay, a Michigan timber exploiter. 
Location of the road is of the first importance. A topographic map, such 
as results from a close strip survey, is regarded as essential to the road scheme 
which is the especial work of the logging engineer. It is felt that even a good 
railroad engineer without logging experience is unsuitable, since he is gener- 
ally unable to subordinate his ideals regarding standard railroad construction 
to the demands of practical logging. Timber railways generally are cheaper 
than trunk lines because of sharper curves and higher grades. 
Plans for logging roads prepared by the Forest Service engineer in making 
his appraisals are available to the operator, but he is at liberty to follow his 
own schemes so long as they are not of detriment to the forest. 
Transport of the timber from the stump consists of— 
(1.) Assembling the logs at a depét (skidway) near the point of 
felling. 
(2.) Hauling the logs to the railway landing. 
The two may be combined. 
The logs may be snigged by animal power without vehicles to a depét 
500 or 1,000 feet away, or, on prepared ways, up to a mile away. 
For longer distances, sleds or wagons are used. 
On the Pacific Coast of America long distance snigging has been replaced 
largely by power skidding, of which the slack rope and cableway systems 
are the chief types. 
The slack-rope system requires a heavy pulling cable and a lighter 
messenger cable for returning the main cable from the skidder to the point 
from which the logs are dragged. 
A landing is built at a suitable spot along the railroad and a donkey 
engine installed at one end of it. When the area tributary to this location 
is exploited, the engine is removed to the other end of the landing. The. 
messenger cable is carried out to the end of a run, six or eight runs ahead of 
the end in which the yarding is to begin; it is then taken to the end of the 
first run that is to be logged and brought along that run to the engine, where 
it is connected to the main cable. At the angles it is held in position by snatch 
blocks. The placing of the messenger cable, several runs ahead, obviates a 
frequent change of position and also keeps it out of the way of the logs as 
they are being hauled in. : 
The cableway system consists of a wire cable suspended between tall 
supports 600 to 1,000 feet apart. On this cable travels a trolly operated by an 
outhaul cable and a skidding line which is attached to the log. The logs are 
dragged half elevated. 
Exploitation rotates round the near support, and some eighteen or twenty 
far supports are employed for each set up. An area of 25 or 40 acres is dealt 
with from one set up. 
This system is advancing in favour very rapidly. It has been employed 
on the Pacific Coast with marked success for handling. small and medium 
sized’timber. It is said that the cost of logs on the car is about one-third less 
than for similar timber logged under the slack-wire system. 
