THE FIR TRIBE. 



335 



vibrations, the carriage, horses and all, would, 

 have been launched into the air, exactly as a small 

 beetle might be fillipped by the finger from the 

 sill of a garret window into the street." 



In the forest districts of the Alps, of Germany, 

 and of Norway, where the people derive a good 

 part of their existence from the timber of their 

 trees, the modes of transporting the produce to 

 the markets are often highly curious. In some 

 cases the woodmen cut down the trees, hurl or 

 roll them into a mountain stream, and let them 

 float down to the sea, or a lake, or to any 

 place where they can be conveniently disposed 

 of. This is comparatively easy so long as the 

 forest is not far from a stream ; but when it is 

 inland, or situated at a great height, or sepa- 

 rated from a stream by a rugged and mountainous 

 district, the ingenuity of the woodman is taxed 

 to the utmost to devise means of transporting 

 the timber. One of the means adopted is to 

 construct a slide, down which the trunk may 

 run by its own impetus. Early in spring the 

 woodmen set off, to begin their business of cut- 

 ting down the trees in the forest, perhaps many 

 miles from their homes ; they have to construct 

 rude huts, in which they live during the summer 

 and autumnal months, and throughout the whole 

 of this period they employ themselves in cutting 

 down the noble trees which surround them. 

 Every tree is classed according to its fitness for 

 practical purposes, and cut up into logs ; and the 

 logs so accumulated are heaped up into huge 

 piles. When the winter arrives, all these logs 

 are transported down to some stream or lake, by 

 means of a slide or trough. This trough is 



