Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-11-05
TELEPHONES I'm THE FOREST.
Jams in streamsSstopped and Move
ment of Logs Facilitated. i,ay

From the Electrical Review wv. ~ -'''i
Throughout the forests from the st. Johns
to Vancouver, lumber camps belonging to
the same interests are connected together,
and thence to the saw mills or wood pulp
works at frontier towns, from which COM
munication can be held even to the metrop
oils.
1t was formerly the custom of each lum-
Der interest to maintain force of couriers,
like the voyagers of the Hudson Bay Com
pany, and these hardy men, with knapsack,
would travel twenty-five miles a day
through the wilderness, over rough forest
paths. Now the mill calls each camp in
turn at stated hours and receives reports
and gives instructions to the foreman, and
it is not necessary to dwell on the CONNER
cial advantages of maintaining such close
touch between headquarters and outpostS in
any enterprise. Letters are read to men
showed in the forest fifty or hundred
miles away and answers dictated by the
lumbermen to a stenographer, who tran
scribes them to the office and then mails
them to their homes
The relative contentment among the men
which is established by this frequent COM
munication is highly advantageous to the
working force, and therefore to their en-
ployers.
The applications of the telephone to the
opera lions of logging are alike novel and
useful. The lines are run upon forest trees
along the banks of rivers, and telephones
which are connected in sheltering boxes
are attached to trees and connected to the
line
The bette noir of logging is the collecting
of the logs together at some narrow place
in a turbulent stream and piing upon each
other in a jam to which contributions are
made by every log floating down the river
to this spot.
The formation of jam results from some
obstacle, and generally occurs without
md IL lob
fraught with peril, to remove the logs from
their CONSTRUCTED position. 1t is frequently
necessary to use dynamite, and much lum-
Der is destroyed by such explosions.
With the use of the telephone warning of
the initial formation of jam can be given
by one of the men patrolling the banks,
who telephones to the men up the river to
stop the further flow of logs at calm places
termed trips and it is an easy matter to
break the small jam, for which further as
sistance can be had by summoning men
from points lower down the stream
AS soon as the small jam is removed the
to release the logs held at the "trip" and
the stream of logs is resumed.
Under former conditions a larger number
of men were employed, and when a lam
was begun it was necessary to send mes
SengerS from one to three miles through
the forest in various directions to direct the
gangs to stop the flow 4of logs, and others
to summon help who are down the stream
| to come up and break the jam, which had
meanwhile, time to amplify, and then, af-
ter the jam had been broken, second mes
sengers must be sent up the stream to re-
| lease the logs at the "trip
BY the promptneSS OF telephone commun-
| ication the rate of sending logs down the
stream is increased by the avoidance of de-
| lays.
! Beyond this the use of the telephone rem
| ders log driving Feasible on the smaller
rapid rough streams, where it was formerly
| out of the question.