line. When the raft is finished, it is wrapped round with cables of 11⁄2 inch iron chain at intervals of twelve feet. Ine cable holds it strongly together, yet do not deprive it wholly of flexibility.

Running from stern to stern of the cigar-shaped raft, and right through its center, are two 2-inch chains, one holding the bulkheads at each end in place, and the other being fastened to the haw

ser.

From the towing chain lateral chains running from the center connect with the encircling bands. Thus it is possible to apply a steady strain in towing, for the stronger the pull the more tightly the logs are held together.

After the raft is launched the locks of the cradle are opened by pulling on ropes connected with them, and the two sections of the cradle float apart, leaving the raft ready to be towed away.

The first rafts which were built, though much smaller than those now constructed, came to pieces, and the piles, drifting here and there, up and down the Coast, were a serious danger to navigators. For this reason shipping men have on several occasions made loud complaints about this novel method of bringing

lumber to market, but so far have not succeeded in putting an end to the traffic. The later raft, built according to the method described above, have shown themselves able to withstand the roughest ocean trip.

The various rafts have contained from 4,000 to 15,000 piles. From the mouth of the Columbia River to San Francisco is a distance of seven hundred miles, and under ordinary conditions of weather a powerful tug will tow a raft down from the Columbia river bar to the Golden Gate in about twelve days.

In September, 1899, one of these rafts, while being towed by the Czarina, broke away and was lost. The tug Rescue was sent out to look for it, and, if possible, to bring it in. The wind being from the northwest, it was supposed that the raft would be carried to the south, so Captain Thomas of the Rescue started out in that direction from San Francisco. After he had been out for four days, he put into Santa Cruz for instructions, and was ordered to return to San Francisco, as the raft had been seen in tow of a steamer. This report turned out to be erroneous, and on Sep

tember 25th the tug again started out in a southerly direction. Early in the morning of September 27th the big raft was sighted about two miles off the coast at Lompoc, which is twenty-five miles to the south of Port Harford. Though it had been buffeted about for several days, it was almost uninjured, only the stern being a little broken. The towing hawser was picked up and the raft was towed in to Port Harford at the rate of about a mile an hour. In Port Harford Bay there was a considerable swell, and in trying to hold the raft the tug lost an anchor and forty fathoms of chain. The tug Monarch was then sent down from San Francisco to help the Rescue, and though a strong northwest wind was blowing and a heavy sea running, the raft was towed into San Francisco harbor in four days, having suffered only a little damage to its bow. Once inside the Golden Gate, the tugs Relief, Alert, and J. H. Redmond, with the Monarch and Rescue, shoved the raft into the mud in Mission Bay, where the owners had her broken up. So great had been the strain that some of the piles on the outside were nearly cut in two by the cables binding the whole great structure together. Shipping men were much pleased at the removal of the raft from the path of sea-going vessels, and the owners were much gratified by

PHOTO BY LIEUT. SKINNER.

its recovery, for of the ten thousand piles which the raft originally contained not more than four hundred were lost. The raft was about 600 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, drawing 20 feet of water.

In September, 1900, a raft 618 feet long, and drawing 28 feet of water, reached San Francisco. It contained more than seven million linear feet of timber, and was towed from West Seattle by the tugs Tatoosh and Rescue. Off the Mendocino coast a storm was encountered, both tugs and raft finding it necessary to heave to for 24 hours. There was a heavy sea, but the tugs lay under the lea of the big raft, and rode out the storm.

Like passenger-steamers, men-of-war, and other things, log rafts tend constantly to increase in size. A gigantic raft was recently constructed on Puget Sound containing from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand piles of an average length of sixty feet. In such a raft there are about 800,000 feet of piling, or more than a dozen sailing vessels could carry. The lumber men now feel so certain of being able to get these monstrous craft to their destination that it is proposed to construct a raft to be towed to Japan.

This method of transporting timber, while it is interesting from its novelty and boldness, has little to recommend it

except that it is profitable to the owners of the lumber. If one of these great rafts, as big as a man-of-war and much more unwieldy, breaks away from the tugs that have it in tow, it means almost certain destruction to any vessel that encounters it on a dark night, while, after it has been broken up by the force of the waves, thousands of piles are scattered broadcast over the ocean, any one of which may sink a sailing vessel or passenger steamer. Besides this, one raft of the largest size contains enough piles to furnish loads for a score of ordinary coasting schooners, carrying a master and four or five men apiece. The log raft deprives the schooner of freight and her sailors of employment.

But so

long as great quantities of lumber can be quickly and cheaply brought to market in this manner, there is little likelihood that any regard for men thrown out of employment or for the danger incurred by vessels navigating the sea between the forests of Puget Sound and the lumber markets of San Francisco will cause the industry to be abandoned. The earlier rafts carried no lights or anything on which a light could be displayed, but when one of the local newspapers pointed out that this is an infraction of the law and renders a craft liable to seizure, the lumber men set up a brand new tripod and lantern on the next raft from the Sound after it had arrived safely within the Golden Gate.