The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-19
ELEPHANTS AT WORK.
Hundreds Employed in sawmills-Ma,
 Give Place to Machinery.

Hundreds Employed in sawmills-May
 Give Place to Machinery.
 To see the working elephant in all his glory one must go to Burma, the centre of the lockwood industry. Some of the great saw mills of Maulmain and Rangoon employ hundreds of ele- plants, some with and others without Tahout or driver.
 The companies own immense timber e ncessions, and each year certain number of trees are marked for cut ting down. Those so marked are girdled to prevent the sap rising. This causes the tree to die.
 In three years it is quite seasoned and dry. It Is then cut down, the branches are lopped off, and one, two, or three elephants are attached to 1t by chains to haul 1t to the nearest stream.
 The creek in which the elephant has deposited its log, says the Circle, may be dry in the timber cutting season; nevertheless the creature continues to pile log after log in the bed of the torrent against the time when the monsoon shall break and waslA the accumulation of logs into one of the main rivers.
 1 When this is done men collect at various points and examine the various owners marks. The logs are sorted and bound into rafts, and family of Burmans forthwith installs itself up- on each, and builds Title hut of bann- boo and leaves In which to live while the big raft of teak logs is coming down the river to Rangoon. When the rafts arrive opposite the yards nerds of working elephants are in waiting to heave the logs out of the water and taken them to different parts of the mill, They display an intelligence almost human; and when the dinner bell rings at midday logs are dropped in every direction and the ground fairly shakes as hundreds of tuskers scamper off to dinner like playful children let out of school.
 When the logs have been sawn other gangs of elephants move dexteriously about among the huge circular saws, avoiding them with extreme care, clering away debris, and in a marvel lous manner, discriminating between mere rubbish and the sawn blanks, Then the elephants stack the latter so carefully that the edges are not in jured.
 Most amusing is it to see one of these working elephants tackling a huge squared log and placing it on the stack. First of all he estimates It's length and weight as it lies on the ground. Then he digs his tusks un- der 1t at one end, curls his trunk over and tries to drag one end of the log on to his tusks.
 Should he find the task beyond him he will give queer little trumpet note, and up. comes colleague to help him at the other end. In a moment the two elephants nave swung the big log between them, walk in step to the pile and then one of them, apparently by preconcerted agreement, places his end in position on the stack, while the other rams home the log.
 Evary timber yard has It's own parti- cular show elephant more intelligent than the rest, and one belonging to Messrs. MacGregor & Go. of Rangun was in the habit of turning on water tap and helping himself to big drink, though he could never be induced to turn the water off again, Similar ob- stinacy and occasionally bad temper is often shown, and the mahouts are very highly paid, for they live always in the risk that the huge brutes my turn upon them nd kill them, prticul- rly if the mahout has at any time shown cruelty or unkindness.
 A Hindu mahout was employed with working elephant in Bangkok Siam, and frequently used steel goad, in defiance of all warnings. The result wah that his elephant made frequent