Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson.

The Senate confirmed the President's nominations, and the matter of the
Cabinet was settled.

* * * * *

A very exciting account of a trip down a lumber flume comes from Pomona,
California.

It seems that in the lumber regions on the Pacific Coast, flumes are built
for the purpose of carrying the lumber from the camps in the mountains to
the sawmills in the valleys below.

These flumes are a kind of V-shaped trough, about three feet deep, and are
built on trestles after the manner of the elevated roads. The height of
the flume from the ground ranges from twenty to one hundred and twenty
feet, and they are fifty to sixty-five miles long.

The logs are floated down on water that is turned into the flume from the
mountain streams. The time taken to make the trip is from two to three
hours.

A party of three men was invited to go up to a lumber camp and take a
trip down into the valley by one of these flumes.

All three of them were accustomed to tobogganing, and thinking it would be
only a toboggan slide on a huge scale, they decided to go.

They spent the night at the lumber camp, and were roused up very early in
the morning, so that they might get down to their business in the valley
betimes. After a hearty breakfast, they wrapped themselves up as warmly as
they could, and prepared for their trip.

They had left warm weather in the valley, but here in the mountains the
snow lay thick, and it was bitter cold.

They shivered (not altogether with cold) when they caught sight of the
little boat that was to take them their fifty miles.

The boat was a very rough-looking thing, nailed together without much
care, and did not look over-strong.

However, as none of the three was willing to be the first man to give in,
they stepped into the little craft, and gripping the seats firmly, in
obedience to the orders of the lumbermen, were pushed off.

For the first few minutes their experience was something terrible. They
were going at such a frightful rate of speed that they could hardly catch
breath; they seemed to be falling down the side of the mountain, and every
moment the speed of their fall increased.

They flew past snowy mountains and ice-bound rivers, and had no time to
see anything.

Each man remembered all the dreadful stories he had heard about accidents
in flumes, and at every curve and turn expected to be dashed to pieces in