272 
THE LUMBER TRADE. 
crowded with vessels as the Thames.* Of late, Chicago, in 
Illinois, has been one of the greatest lumber as well as grain 
depots of the United States, and it receives and distributes 
contributions from all the forests in the States w T ashed by Lake 
Michigan, as well as from some more distant points. 
The operations of the lumberman involve other dangers to 
the woods besides the loss of the trees felled by him. The 
narrow clearings around his shanties f form openings which let 
in the wind, and thus sometimes occasion the overthrow of 
thousands of trees, the fall of which dams up small streams, 
and creates bogs by the spreading of the waters, while the 
decaying trunks facilitate the multiplication of the insects 
which breed in dead wood, and are, some of them, inj urious to 
living trees. The escape and spread of camp fires, however, is 
the most devastating of all the causes of destruction that find 
their origin in the operations of the lumberman. The propor¬ 
tion of trees fit for industrial uses is small in all primitive 
woods. Only these fall before the forester’s axe, but the fire 
destroys, indiscriminately, every age and every species of tree.:): 
* One of these, the Baron of Renfrew—so named from one of the titles 
of the kings of England—built thirty or forty years ago, measured 5,000 
tons. They were little else than rafts, being almost solid masses of timber 
designed to be taken to pieces and sold as lumber on arriving at their port 
of destination. 
The lumber trade at Quebec is still very hu’ge. According to a recent 
article in the Revue des Deux Mondes , that city exported, in 1860, 30,000,000 
cubic feet of squared timber, and 40.0,000,000 square feet of “ planches.’ 
The thickness of the boards is not stated, but I believe they are generally 
cut an inch and a quarter thick for the Quebec trade, and as they shrink 
somewhat in drying, we may estimate ten square for one cubic foot 
of boards. This gives a total of 70,000,000 cubic feet. The specific 
gravity of white pine is .554, and the weight of this quantity of lumber, 
very little of which is thoroughly seasoned, would exceed a million of tons, 
even supposing it to consist wholly of wood as light as pine. New Bruns¬ 
wick, too, exports a large amount of lumber. 
t This name, from the French chantier , which has a wider meaning, is 
applied in America to temporary huts or habitations erected for the con¬ 
venience of forest life, or in connection with works of material improvement. 
} Trees differ much in their power of resisting the action of forest fires. 
