424 
LOGGING 
the entire brail and furtlier strengthens it. The brail is braced 
crosswise with cables as shown in Fig. 154a. Several links of 
chain are fastened to the outside boom sticks by means of a rafting 
pin. On the opposite side one end of a special cable, Fig. 154c, 
is fastened to the boom stick by a pin and the other end carried 
over to the chain, which is passed through a flattened link and 
caught. This gives rigidity to the raft. 
The chains and cables can be used repeatedly and hence are 
cheaper than rope, which can be used but once. Rafts of this 
Fig. 155. — A C'yjjivss Raft in a Louisiana Bayou. The floating vegetation 
on the extreme right is the water-hyacinth. 
character are made in sections, some of them 300 by 750 feet 
in size, and containing from 850,000 to 4,000,000 board feet of 
timber. They are controlled by two end-wheeled boats, one 
at the rear which serves to regulate the speed, and one at the 
front end which is floated side on and which guides the raft 
by pulling it backward or forward across the stream. 
Cypress Rafts. — Cypress logs, which are skidded with pull- 
boats, are rafted down the canals and bayous. A common 
form of raft has cigar-shaped sections from 150 to 200 feet long, 
each containing from twenty to thirty logs which are floated 
loose within the boom sticks. Sinkers are placed between 
floating logs and fastened to them by poles and chain dogs. 
Old skidding cable is often used to bind the boom sticks to- 
gether. A 2-inch hole is bored in the log, and the end of the 
