Using Machinery in the Forests. [Volume: 8, Issue: 3, 1889, pp. 143-146]

144

UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

cannot assert, but attention having been directed to several new
features, we present them as of interest to such of our readers as
own or control woodland.
The first is a steam logging sled which is in operation in northern New York, and which can be adapted for handling logs or
cord wood. It is described as a large box car on bobs or runners,
and is intended to haul the logs out of the woods on the snow.
A clipping sent us states " the sleigh is eight feet high, and the
bobs six feet wide. The motive power is supplied by a boiler
seven feet high which weighs 8,000 pounds and two high pressure.engines weighing 5,500 pounds. There are four drive wheels
which weigh 4,000 pounds, and are driven by an endless chain
from the engine. The sleigh is steered somewhat after the manner of a steamboat. The drive wheels are covered for about threefourths of their circumference by a steam-box into which the
steam exhausts; the water falling into the track of the sleigh,
freezes and thus makes a road of solid ice. To prevent the drive
wheels from slipping, these are supplied with spurs three inches
deep and ten inches long. The sleigh is capable of carrying
15,000 feet of logs at one time, which is equivalent to the amount
that would ordinarily be drawn by fifteen teams of horses. The
sleigh is used in drawing logs from the woods to the banking ground."
The second invention to which our attention was directed is an
electric tree-felling machine, which is illustrated and described in the
Engineering and Mining Journaland from it we extractthefollowing:
"Hitherto the only mechanical appliance to supersede hand
labor in the felling of trees has been the steam tree feller, but the
employment of steam for such a purpose is coupled with considerable difficulties. Not only is it necessary to place the boiler in
close proximity to the tree that is to be felled, but the weight of
the machine itself is considerable, and its application when the
ground is uneven inconvenient. In a dense forest, machinery of
this description can only be used when the tree to be felled is
either on the borders of the forest or in a clearance accessible
by a road over which the boiler can be transported. These difficulties are greatly minimized, if not entirely overcome, by the application of electricity. The source of power in this case is not a
boiler, which must be placed near the tree, but some prime mover
and dynamo machine, which may be erected at any reasonable