Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/129

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PLANNING, BUILDING, AND OPENING
125

heavy business of grubbing and clearing. By means of an endless screw, connected with a cable, a wheel and a crank, one man is able to bring down a tree of the largest size, without any cutting about its roots. For this purpose these means are all, except the cable, combined in a small but very strong frame of wood and iron.—This frame is immovably fastened on the ground, at a distance of perhaps one hundred feet from the foot of the tree, around the trunk of which fifty or sixty feet up, one end of the cable is secured, the other being connected with the roller. When this is done, the man turns the crank, which successively moves the screw, the wheel and the roller, on which, as the cable winds up, the tree must gradually yield, until, at length, it is precipitated by the weight of its top. The force which may be exerted in this way, upon a tree, is irresistible, as with the principle of the wheel and the screw, by the application of the cable at a point so far from the ground, it unites also that of the lever." The machine for hauling stumps is thus described: "Two strong wheels, sixteen feet in diame-