Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1894-04-26
THE TIMBER CRUISER.
He Is a Hero and Forest King.

He Is Hero ana Forest KING.
julius Chambers in the Century ;-On
the frontier of advancing civilization
there is n species Of livelihood called
cruising for timber The smile is
an apt one, for the woodsman who
seeks new timber regions amid the
trackleSs wilderness, in which the sun
Is hidden by day and the stars by
night. is as bold a navigator as his
brother who tolls on the painless
waste of the sea.
The timber cruiser is even more a
child of the forest than the native he
succeeds He is the precursor Of the
lumberman and the saw-mill two Inn
portant factors in our progressive civil
ization He is untauEht Generally
he knows nothing of astronomy but
the suns course aud the polar star
because the heavens are so often
wholly out of sight in the tangled for
est that he relies on other guides.
The mysterious secrets az terrestrial
nature, handed down to him by genera
tons Of pathhnders gone before, keep
him informed.
On the prairie he knows that the tips
of the grass always incline toward the
south. and that they are less green on
the northward side In the forest the
slender twigs on the boughs bend
southwark so slightly II may be that
only the trained eye can detect the de-
Election; vet It is there. The moss
on the tree trunks is always on the
north side, the bark is smoother and
more supple on the east than towad
more supple on the east than toward
the west, and southwark the mildew
never comes.
Thus does this unlettered savant box
the compass in the wilderness
The timber cruiser is a hero, He is
Il forest king. The wealth of The
woods is his. He always travels alone.
His acts of courage, endurance and
skill are never witnessed by others and
are never boasted of 10y himself. In
deed, his successes or failures are
never talked about, save to the III
rectors of the lumber companies who
employ him, and to whom he makes
a infinitely detailed report He has
probably the best memory known TO
man, for he viii return from two
months cruise, and be able to locate
accurately every tract Of valuable
hemlock timber in a hundred square
miles of worthless woods and tama-
rack.
He undertakes the most arduous
journeys without providing more than
a blanket and a few days provisions;
he confronts all kinds of dangers,
mindful Of their inconvenience, but
fearing them not, because he studies
nature on commercial basis. In
brief, he is a true philosopher; always
prepared for the unexpected; happy,
because ignorant of the relative values
of comfort ana discomfort, and brave,
because he is an egotist who believes
thoroughly in his own abilities
His is the task of locating the land
scrip that capitalists and large corpOr-
ations have purchased from the gov
eminent He precedes the woodsman,
the ak, and the saw, just as the post
trader precedes the teacher and the
preacher He is to the ADVANCING
lumberman what the Don CossacE is
to the Russian hosts.
The location of a choice tract Of tim
Der is a secret to be guarded with his
life. Weeks, even mouths, may inter
vene before the lands can he taken
up" and entered upon lhe records at
Washington The painless forest is
his home, solitude his companion, and,
like his brother on the "mnltimdinous
seas" he often dies alone and his I'M
buried body becomes part Of the ele-
ments Of nature he SO Intimately
courts. He is new to literature. un-
l-,,g.,,,r To ennor and story