The boldness which characterizes this work, the sagacity and skill displayed in all its arrangements, have excited the wonder of every person who has seen it.  Before any step could be taken in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand trees to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets.  All these difficulties, however, were surmounted, and the engineer had at last the satisfaction of seeing the trees descend from the mountain with the rapidity of lightning.  The larger pines, which were about a hundred feet long, and ten inches thick at their smaller extremity, ran through the space of three leagues, or nearly nine miles, in two minutes and a half, and during their descent, they appeared to be only a few feet in length.

The arrangements for this part of the operation were extremely simple.  From the lower end of the slide to the upper end, where the trees were introduced, workmen were posted at regular distances, and as soon as everything was ready, the workman at the lower end of the slide cried out to the one above him, ‘Lachez’ (let go).  The cry was repeated from one to another. and reached the top of the slide in three minutes.  The workmen at the top of the slide then cried out to the one below him, ’Il vient’ (it comes), and the tree was instantly launched down the slide, preceded by the cry which was repeated from post to post.  As soon as the tree had reached thebottom, and plunged into the lake, the cry of lachez was repeated as before, and a new tree was launched in a similar manner.  By these means a tree descended every five or six minutes, provided no accident happened to the slide, which sometimes took place, but which was instantly repaired when it did.

In order to shew the enormous force which the trees acquired from the great velocity of their descent, M. Rupp made arrangements for causing some of the trees to spring from the slide.  They penetrated by their thickest extremities no less than from eighteen to twenty-four feet into the earth; and one of the trees having by accident struck against another, it instantly cleft it through its whole length, as if it had been struck by lightning.

After the trees had descended the slide, they were collected into rafts upon the lake, and conducted to Lucerne.  From thence they descended the Reuss, then the Aar to near Brugg, afterwards to Waldshut by the Rhine, then to Basle, and even to the sea when it was necessary.

It is to be regretted that this magnificent structure no longer exists, and that scarcely a trace of it is to be seen upon the flanks of Mount Pilatus.  Political circumstances having taken away the principal source of demand for the timber, and no other market having been found, the operation of cutting and transporting the trees necessarily ceased.(4*)

Professor Playfair, who visited this singular work, states, that six minutes was the usual time occupied in the descent of a tree; but that in wet weather, it reached the lake in three minutes.