Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-09-15
BREAKING A LOG JAM.
Ticklish Business on the Brink of a
 40 Foot Cataract.

40 Foot Cataract.
 Not many years ago center jam formed just above the falls where the Tahquamenon river leaps forty feet to the whirpool below, It was only few yards back from the verge, says writer in the Outlook, and to break it the men were obliged to get down into the water below it, stand there | with the falls behind them and the current swirling about their knees, and pry the bottom logs out with their peaveys.
 The water was not deep and the jam itself sheltered them from the rush of the river, but if a man lost his footing he was gone. Carefully and cautiously they worked the first log loose, and as it started toward them they leaped upon it, and be- fore it could get away with them jumped from it to the jam.
 Loosening one stick was not en- ough to start the rest, and they soon found that the whole pile would have to be torn apart little by little. More than that, other logs kept coming down the rapids and adding themselves to it, so that it grew at one end as rapidly as they could tear it away at the other; but they kept at it, and in the course of time they l worked back ten or twelve rods from the brink
 Then, of sudden, one of them saw long piece of pulpwood coming for him. There was no time for him to dodge and it was too small to hold 1 him if he mounted 1t, so,as the only chance, he tried to jump over it. It was too quick for him. It took him across the thighs and the next instant he was down and the river was sweeping him toward the falls On he went, faster and faster, nearer and nearer, till he was almost on the verge, and then, by some miracle of strength and agility, he got his spiked shoes against something solid, rose to his feet and started to wade back against the current. Little by little he forged ahead till he met some logs large enough to carry his weight, and mounting them, he jumped from one to another till he reached the jam. Then the fore man cursed him for having dropped his peavey, and he waded out again almost to the brink, found it where 1t had caught between some rocks and brought 1t back.
 The problem of handling drive in which the logs are not made up into rafts-as is sometimes done-but are simply turned loose on the river, is to keep them from tanning and to see that no stragglers are left be- hind. It is the stragglers that give the | most trouble-the stray sticks that | run aground in the shallow places. and that, if the water falls consider | ably after the spring freshets, are often left high and dry on the banks to make what the river driver calls a dry rear. Now and then, it is true, a whole field of logs catches in narrow bend. l and the entire crew has to go for I ward to the point of congestion and set things moving; but most of the time the men are taking care of the rear while the rest of the drive takes care of itself. @s..~ 7
 Just behind the drive long boom, made of logs chained together end to end, is stretched across the stream from shore to shore, with big red bateau in charge at one end and a square boxlike scow at the other. A shorter distance ahead of the boom are two smaller boats, one following each bank, and few men are usually
 walking along the shores, sometimes on land, sometimes wading in the
 water and sometimes afoat on the loose
 The first time a river driver asked
 me if was "any good on the loose II thought that he was wondering
 whether or not would make con-
 genial companion on spree. This proved to be mistake. s..~--
 "The loose" is. the term used on
 the drive to designate logs or pulp.
 wood sticks floating loosely on the
 surface of the river, and to be good
 on the loose Is to be able to go about
 on it wherever one pleases without
 getting wet. To ride big pine loe
 Is not so very difficult, but to walk
 or run across a field of pulpwood