HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

side this boom the rafts are made up belonging to the different
owners, and hundreds of men may be seen standing at their re-
spective posts watching closely every log for the owner's mark
and shoving it on its journey to the next when its ownership is
not recognized. When their raft is full, made up in this way, it
is shoved across the channel and 'hung,' to be taken through the
canal in that shape, and to be made up into 'fleets' in the bay
below. The river from its turn to the lake, some two miles, pre-
sents one solid mass of logs, which are also rafted and taken
round through the lake to the bay aforesaid. It is difficult to-
convey to the mind of the reader a correct idea of this laborious
process. It must be seen to be appreciated, and to take a view
of the hundreds of small houses all afloat on the rafts, in which
men, apparently happy, spend their lives, is but to impress the
beholder with a full sense of the magnitude of the work and the
mode of life of thousands of river men in the lumber trade.
"That there are two miles and a half of the river occupied in
making up the rafts and two miles of Boom bay below the cut-
off used for the same purpose. Sixty companies are engaged in
getting out and running down logs. There are facilities for mak-
ing up at the same time 150 rafts, which are made up and:
'hung' outside the booms for 'fleeting.' Half a million of logs
in number pass through the cutoff in one season. One hundred
and fifty million feet of logs got out is a fair estimate for this
year. Two thousand men are engaged yearly in the logging
business. Three hundred men are engaged in rafting at the bay.
Average wages per day is $2.
" Logs taken in fleets from this bay by tugs to Oshkosh cost
15 to 20 cents; to Fond du Lac, 40 to 50 cents; Neenah and
Menasha, 40 to 50 cents. Fleets comprising from 2,000,000 to
3,000,000 feet are brought down by a single tug. The prominent
appendage of a tug is her 'grouser,' which an old 'salt' would
call a 'juy mast.' After the boat is attached to the fleet she is
run out to the length of her tow line and this perpendicular
fixture (grouser) is then let down directly through the forward
part of the boat, and being armed with a steel point, sinks deep
into the sand or mud and, like a kedge anchor, holds the boat
fast; then the machinery for increased power, operated on by
steam, winds up the line and moves the fleet so much. Then be-
fore the momentum is lost the boat has hauled up her 'grouser,'
gone ahead and ready to give another pull a somewhat slow
but powerful method of moving logs. It is only through the

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