THE FIR TRIBE. 



339 



peasants accompanying them through the forest, 

 present a very picturesque appearance. In many 

 cases the trees are brought nearly a thousand 

 miles before they are delivered to the merchant ; 

 and they generally remain under his care till 

 another winter, to be shaped and fitted for ex- 

 portation in such a manner as to take up as little 

 room as possible on shipboard ; so that this 

 timber does not reach the foreign consumer till 

 two years after it has been cut down. When the 

 trees are delivered to the merchant, they are care- 

 fully examined to ascertain their soundness ; and 

 for this purpose a hatchet is struck several times 

 against them, the emitted sound affording the 

 means of estimating the soundness of the tree : 

 those which are defective constitute about one 

 tenth of the whole. The trees are not conveyed 

 from the forests the whole way to St. Petersburg 

 by horses, but only to the margin of some stream 

 or lake, from whence they may be floated down to 

 the capital. 



The most striking examples of the floating of 

 timber by rafts are presented on the Danube and 

 Rhine. The immense forests of southern and 

 western Germany are in most cases within reach 

 of some stream or other which flows into the 

 Rhine, the Danube, the Rhone, or one of the 

 other large rivers ; and in such cases the logs of 

 timber, precipitated into the smaller streams by 

 the troughs, or by some other contrivance, are 

 floated singly down these small streams until they 

 reach the larger rivers, when they are made into 

 rafts. ^' Below the bridge at Plattning, on the 

 Danube, the raft-masters of Munich, who leave 

 that city every Monday for Vienna, unite their 



