required to sustain one end, or more than half the weight of the largest trees upon a single bar: in some cases several tuns burden rest upon a single point. While this bar alone sustains one half the entire log, it is also the only part of the sled to which the heavy trunks of those massive trees are bound; it therefore draws as well as sustains the load, challenging the powers of six and even eight of the stoutest oxen. [Illustration: LOG HAULING--PROCESS OF LOADING LOGS.] In the process of loading, the bob-sled is placed several feet from the side of that end of the log which is to be placed upon it. Then a large skid, from four to eight inches in diameter and several feet in length, is placed near the large bar running under the log. A chain is next attached to the bar, passing now under, then over the log, back to the sled, crossing it. It is then attached by other chains to one or two yoke of oxen, whose united strength is requisite to roll one end of it upon this big bar, to which it is bound with strong, heavy chains. Of late, the tackle and fall has been introduced in loading, which very much facilitates the operation. The six oxen are now attached to the sled, one pair of them to the tongue; the others are attached by chains in advance as leaders. The teamster now arranges every ox in the most advantageous position, passing through several evolutions with his goad-stick; then giving the word of command, they settle to it. Slowly it moves forward, while the vociferations of the animated teamster, the squatting-like posture of the hard-drawn team, indicate the importance and interest of the occasion; and the bob-sled, as though it were a thing of life, actually screams out at every joint as if in keenest agony beneath its ponderous load. The reader has perhaps been present at a "launching;" the nervous emotions experienced in the process described, including the felling of the gigantic Pines, the skidding and hauling, quite equal those awakened at the launching of a vessel. This process is gone through with several times each day during the winter (Sundays excepted); really it is like going to launching every day, and the pleasurable excitement of the labor renders it extremely delightful to most who are engaged in it. The general custom is to take the whole trunk of the tree to the landing at one load, when its size will allow, where it is sawed into short logs from fourteen to thirty feet in length, to facilitate the driving down river. I have cut one tree into five logs, the shortest of which was not less than fourteen feet. I have seen them hauled eighty-two feet in length, resembling, in their passage to the landing, immense serpents crawling from their lurking-places. Thus we continue to fell, clear, and haul until the "clump" is exhausted, and our attention is again directed to another school of these forest whales, and so on until our winter's work is completed.