SLIDE OF ALPNACH. 



73 



to have the benefit of its pilotage. The guid- 

 ance of this enormous floating island of tim- 

 ber is^ indeed^ a business of no small anxiety 

 and difficulty^ owing to the abrupt windings^ 

 the rocks, and the shallows, of the river. Thus 

 they make their way to Holland, generally with 

 little damage : but the money needful to un- 

 dertake the construction of a raft of this sort 

 is said to be about 35,000/. sterling. 



But the most astonishing method of trans- 

 porting timber, that I ever heard of, was that 

 by the slide of Alpnach, in Switzerland. A 

 bold speculator entertained the daring idea of 

 conveying the pines from the top of Mount 

 Pilatus to the Lake of Lucerne, a distance of 

 nearly nine miles, by means of an inclined 

 plane, or sloping wooden road, extending the 

 whole way ! The slide consisted of a trough, 

 or gutter, formed of twenty-five thousand 



