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Lumbering in the Carpathiams: The Start of a Perilous Journey
The;y a;e Ruthenian peasants. Thei'r job is ·to take the. timber, which hQ4 been cut and bound into rafts, downstream. They have been waiting in the darkness
sInce two o'clock, each group of men on the raft assigned
to
them. As the sun;rises the sluice gates are opened. The raft
is
torpedoed by the flood water into
the stream twenty feet below. The men cross themSelves as, they duck 1:Lnder the bar, hang on grimly, steady themselves as the raft hits level water.
.
--.
One ofthe most dangerous callings
in the world , is that of the lumber–
jacks-the men who hew our timber
and bring it to the sawmills.
T
IMBER production is the main industry -
.
in the Carpathians of -Ruthenia, once
C?echoslovwan territory, but to-day on
the Hungarian ·side of the new Polish-Hunga'rian
, frontier as the resulcof the Munich settlement.
Lumbering all over the world is a hard ·and
dangerous calling, and its general lines vary little
. from country to country. The Ruthenian peasant
hired
b.y the sawmill companies .to cut and bring
the timber down river, needs the same toughness
~d
the same careful 'judgment as the North
Americ!an or Canadian lumberjack. Under the
relatively'primitive conditions of Central European
lumbering he runs even greater risks. Most
dangerous of all
IS
the way in which the logs are
brought downstream., Near Ozera a huge '
dam
,has been erected in the valley to form a lake about
a mile and a half long and about
60
feet deep.
When the lake is full the sluice gates are opened.
The waterfioods into what is normally a small
.
Half-Way Down Without Acci.dent
They swing the raft round
to
take a bend lower down the river. Here the flood water runs fast. Here
capsizing is ·easier ,than ever. For
no
help can be expected from the thickly wooded
ban~
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