Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/95

] each compartment. Each camp has an average of eight elephants, with a headman in charge. After being felled, the trees are cut into logs on the spot, a whole tree being too heavy for dragging. The logs are drawn by elephants to the nearest creek along rough roads generally made by elephants dragging the first logs. On arrival at the bank of the creek, the logs are measured and classified by the European staff and the result is reported to the lessee. The creeks which intersect the forest are very low in the cold and hot weather but are filled in the rains by big rises. After being measured and classified, the logs are launched as soon as possible so as to be ready for the next rise. Care must be taken not to crowd the logs, or they will jam at once, especially when, as is generally the case, the creek is narrow and tortuous. Always after a rise, two or three elephants are sent down the creek to put straight the logs and break up any jams. Unless the creek is exceptionally big, it takes a good many rises to float the logs into the main stream. Later on, when they have reached the great river, the Irrawaddy, Salween, Chindwin, or Sittang, the logs are formed into rafts and floated down to Rangoon or Moulmein.

The Forest Department is administered on quasi-commercial lines and yields a substantial surplus. In the financial year 1920—21, the receipts were approximately £2,200,000, the expenditure £890,000, leaving a profit of £1,310,000.

Besides teak, many other trees of various economic importance abound. Pyingado (Xylia dolabriformis), harder than and nearly as durable as teak and, on account of its specific gravity, more difficult to extract, is used for railway sleepers and house-building. Other house-building woods are pyinma (Lagerstroemia Flos Reginae); kanyin-byu (Dipterocarpus alatus); thitya (Shorea obtusa); in (Dipterocarpus tuberculatum); ingyin (Pentacme suavis); tauk-kyan (Terminalia tomentosa); and hnaw (Adina cordifolia). In also