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Steep Trails-Part23_John Muir(1838-1914)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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exception of the bottom lands around the Sound and on the lower

reaches of the rivers, there are comparatively few spots of



cultivation in western Washington. On every meadow or opening of any

kind some one will be found keeping cattle, planting hop vines, or



raising hay, vegetables, and patches of grain. All the large spaces

available, even back near the summits of the Cascade Mountains, were



occupied long ago. The newcomers, building their cabins where the

beavers once built theirs, keep a few cows and industriously seek to



enlarge their small meadow patches by chopping, girdling, and burning

the edge of the encircling forest, gnawing like beavers, and



scratching for a living among the blackened stumps and logs, regarding

the trees as their greatest enemies--a sort of larger pernicious weed



immensely difficult to get rid of.

But all these are as yet mere spots, making no visible scar in the



distance and leaving the grand stretches of the forest as wild as they

were before the discovery of the continent. For many years the axe



has been busy around the shores of the Sound and ships have been

falling in perpetual storm like flakes of snow. The best of the



timber has been cut for a distance of eight or ten miles from the

water and to a much greater distance along the streams deep enough to



float the logs. Railroads, too, have been built to fetch in the logs

from the best bodies of timberotherwiseinaccessible except at great



cost. None of the ground, however, has been completely denuded. Most

of the young trees have been left, together with the hemlocks and



other trees undesirable in kind or in some way defective, so that the

neighboring trees appear to have closed over the gaps make by the



removal of the larger and better ones, maintaining the general

continuity of the forest and leaving no sign on the sylvan sea, at



least as seen from a distance.

In felling the trees they cut them off usually at a height of six to



twelve feet above the ground, so as to avoid cutting through the

swollen base, where the diameter is so much greater. In order to



reach this height the chopper cuts a notch about two inches wide and

three or four deep and drives a board into it, on which he stands



while at work. In case the first notch, cut as high as he can reach,

is not high enough, he stands on the board that has been driven into



the first notch and cuts another. Thus the axeman may often be seen

at work standing eight or ten feet above the ground. If the tree is



so large that with his long-handled axe the chopper is unable to reach

to the farther side of it, then a second chopper is set to work, each



cutting halfway across. And when the tree is about to fall, warned by

the faint crackling of the strained fibers, they jump to the ground,



and stand back out of danger from flying limbs, while the noble giant

that had stood erect in glorious strength and beauty century after



century, bows low at last and with gasp and groan and booming throb

falls to earth.



Then with long saws the trees are cut into logs of the required

length, peeled, loaded upon wagons capable of carrying a weight of



eight or ten tons, hauled by a long string of oxen to the nearest

available stream or railroad, and floated or carried to the Sound.



There the logs are gathered into booms and towed by steamers to the

mills, where workmen with steel spikes in their boots leap lightly



with easy poise from one to another and by means of long pike poles

push them apart and, selecting such as are at the time required, push



them to the foot of a chute and drive dogs into the ends, when they

are speedily hauled in by the mill machinery alongside the saw



carriage and placed and fixed in position. Then with sounds of greedy

hissing and growling they are rushed back and forth like enormous



shuttles, and in an incredibly short time they are lumber and are

aboard the ships lying at the mill wharves.



Many of the long, slender boles so abundant in these woods are saved

for spars, and so excellent is their quality that they are in demand



in almost every shipyard of the world. Thus these trees, felled and

stripped of their leaves and branches, are raised again, transplanted



and set firmly erect, given roots of iron and a new foliage of

flapping canvas, and sent to sea. On they speed in glad, free motion,



cheerily waving over the blue, heaving water, responsive to the same

winds that rocked them when they stood at home in the woods. After






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