Puget sound holds a leading position in the United States in the magnitude of its logging operations. The quantity of logs put into the water in 1888 was four hundred and thirty-four million five hundred thousand feet. Logging is carried on to the best advantage in the summer time, and logging railroads, sometimes several miles in length, upon which locomotives draw cars of logs from the interior to the sound, or to streams connecting with it, have been built by a number of companies at great expense. In the huge size of the timber, the logger of the west finds an obstacle to contend with that the logger of the Michigan pineries does not encounter. Logs of six feet in diameter are frequent, while they occasionally much exceed that figure. Ox teams generally consist of six pairs of lusty animals, which are used to drag the logs to the railroad or stream. In cutting down this huge timber, the choppers use a novel device to avoid cutting through the swell near the ground. A notch several inches deep is cut in the side of the tree, and the end of a spring board, having an iron shoe, is put into the notch in such a way that it is bound fast by the weight of the chopper when he stands on it. If the first notch is not high enough, another is cut higher up. By this method the stumps left standing are from six to twelve feet high. When the tree is very large, two choppers work at a time, as shown in the engraving on the opposite page.