REDWOOD FORESTS OF THE PACIFIC (OAST 159 



with about 75 men, all splendid specimens of manhood and all 

 black as negroes — faces, hands, and clothing — from the charcoal 

 in which they work, but well read, intelligent, and interested in 

 the doings of the outside world. 



The mills of the redwood strip are as progressive and up to 

 date as are the logging operations. The logs and the lumber 

 are moved and handled everywhere by machinery in the most 

 complete and ingenious manner. They are drawn from the 

 pond up into the mills and are rolled on to the carriage and 

 moved into place for the saw by ingenious devices operated by 

 steam. The logs are sawed by band saws — a continuous band 

 of steel, with teeth cut on one edge, running over drums above 

 and below. This is preferable to the circular saw for two rea- 

 sons : it can saw a log of almost any size, which the buzz saw or 

 any combination of buzz saws cannot do; and, second, since it 

 can be made much thinner than the buzz saw, there is less waste 

 of wood in sawdust. In some mills the band saws have teeth 

 cut on each edge, so that a cut may be made both as the log- 

 moves forward and backward. The boards, beams, joists, plank, 

 etc., as they come from the band saw, are distributed by rollers, 

 steam-worked, to the proper parts of the mill for future cutting, 

 while the slabs and other waste are similarly carried off to waste- 

 heaps. The lumber, as it comes from the band saw. is edged, 

 cut to smaller dimensions, etc., by small circular saws, in some 

 cases harnessed in gangs, so that several cuts are made at once. 

 To watch the wheels go round in one of these big mills is a most 

 entrancing occupation. 



Redwood is in almost universal use on the California coast. 

 In the construction of houses little other timber is used, even as 

 far south as Los Angeles and San Diego. It is exported as far 

 south as Valparaiso, Chili, and westward to Japan and Australia. 

 Indeed, considering its cheapness, $14 per thousand feet in 

 Eureka for the best, it seems strange that it has not found its 

 way in quantity to the Atlantic coast. Certain it is that before 

 many years redwood will supplant the now vanishing white 

 pine in eastern markets. 



