LOGGING IN THE DOUGLAS FIR REGION. 129 
held taut. This keeps the carriage stationary. When the logs are 
elevated sufficiently at one end to clear obstructions, the skidding 
and return-line drums are interlocked and the skidding line drawn 
in (the return line being simultaneously paid out) until the logs are 
brought to the landing places, where they are dropped ready to be 
loaded on the cars. The operation of the drum is then reversed and 
the carriage returned to the woods at high speed by the return line. 
The operation is then repeated. 
Changing lines. — Two main cables are employed. While one is 
being used in yarding, the rigging crew is at work getting the other 
in place on the next run. When all the timber on one run has been 
logged, the main cable is dropped by the lifting and lowering drum 
and taken out of the carriage. The other main cable, already 
brought to place by the riggers, is placed in the carriage, connected, 
and tightened up, the entire change of lines taking from 20 to 40 
minutes. The rigging crew then delivers the main cable from the 
old run to a new one. A light changing or straw line, provided for 
the purpose, is drawn out by hand from the head spar tree on the 
new run, up to and around the newly selected tail tree, and thence to 
the tail tree that has just been deserted. The changing line is there 
made fast to the main cable left lying on the ground on the run last 
logged, and then, by means of a drum, drawn back to the head spar 
tree, thus dragging the main cable entirely around the new tail tree 
to a position between the head spar and tail tree on the new run, 
ready to be connected up when required. 
Changing settings. — The manufacturers of the skidder state that 
the change from one setting to another with the tree-rigged type 
consumes from two to six hours. An operator who is using one of 
these machines stated that a change from one setting to another 
could be made in from one-half to three-fourths of a da}^, provided 
a double set of rigging is used ; that where a single set of rigging is 
used, the time consumed in changing settings ranges from a day to 
a day and a quarter. 
The loss of time in moving from one setting to another is not 
considerable when compared with the loss of time in changing the 
settings of ground yarding engines, since the skidder, as a rule, logs 
more than twice as large an area at a setting as the ground yarding 
engine. The skidding roads radiate around the head spar, and the 
timber on both sides of the track is yarded at one setting of the 
skidder. 
The time consumed in changing settings with the steel-spar type is, 
of course, considerably smaller, ranging, it is said, from an hour and 
a half to two hours. 
61361°— Bull. 711—18 9 
