I walked up the trestle and into the mill. Tho noise almost deafened me.
High above all other sounds rose the piercing song of the saw, and the
short intervals when it was not cutting were filled with a thunderous crash
that jarred the whole building. After a few confused glances I got the
working order into my head, and found myself in the most interesting place
I had ever seen.

As the stream of logs came up into the mill the first log was shunted off
the chain upon a carriage. Two men operated this carriage by levers, one to
take the log up to the saw, and the other to run it back for another cut.
The run back was very swift. Then a huge black iron head butted up from
below and turned the log over as easily as if it had been a straw. This was
what made the jar and crash. On the first cut the long strip of bark went
to the left and up against five little circular saws. Then the five pieces
slipped out of sight down chutes. When the log was trimmed a man stationed
near the huge band-saw made signs to those on the carriage, and I saw that
they got from him directions whether to cut the log into timbers, planks,
or boards. The heavy timbers, after leaving the saw, went straight down the
middle of the mill, the planks went to the right, the boards in another
direction. Men and boys were everywhere, each with a lever in hand. There
was not the slightest cessation of the work. And a log forty feet long and
six feet thick, which had taken hundreds of years to grow, was cut up in
just four minutes.

The place fascinated me. I had not dreamed that a sawmill could be brought
to such a pitch of mechanical perfection, and I wondered how long the
timber would last at that rate of cutting. The movement and din tired me,
and I went outside upon a long platform. Here workmen caught the planks and
boards as they came out, and loaded them upon trucks which were wheeled