Sled

Sledge, or Sleigh, a vehicle without wheels used for dragging burdens on land, or more particularly on snow and ice. It is difficult to distinguish between the three terms. All three are related, little doubt, to slide and slip. In the popular conception a sled and sleigh have runners, while the sledge slides on a single surface. The girl who ties a string to a shingle and gives her doll a ride has a sledge. The first sledge was doubtless a primitive contrivance of this sort, possibly a hollow log drawn by a thong of hide. The pulk or traveling sledge of the Laplander is shaped like a boat. It is pointed in front and square behind. The framework is light and is covered with the hide of a reindeer. The contrivance is about five feet long, a foot deep, and eighteen inches wide. The traveler sits in the bottom of the sledge with his back against the stern and his legs stretched out in front of him. The reindeer, or string of reindeer, is attached by a thong to the pointed end.

The Eskimo sledge is of similar construction. The Eskimo built his frame of bone or precious bits of floating wood and covered it with the hide of walrus. The English hurdle on which criminals were drawn to execution was a runnerless vehicle with a flat bottom. The farmer's stone boat is a sledge. The toboggan of the northern trapper on which he drags his tent, camp outfit, and traps to the woods and his furs to market is a form of runnerless sledge. This distinction cannot be held, however. The winter vehicle of Russia, though provided with runners, is called a sledge. The traveling sledge of Peter The Great had a body like that of a carriage mounted on a heavy wooden frame having two runners. His traveling trunk was strapped on behind. The streets of St. Petersburg are noted for gay winter turnouts, invariably described by newspaper writers as sledges.

In the United States and Canada, at least, the bobsled, the cutter, and the handsled are well known. The bobsled consists of two short sleds one following the other. They are connected usually by a reach. The load is carried on a rack which rests on both sleds. The advantage of the bobsled lies in the fact that the two pairs of short runners accommodate themselves to any unevenness in the road better than a single long sled. The American cutter has two runners connected by a slight, well-braced framework, surmounted by a box, provided usually with a single seat and a high curved dashboard in front. It is considered a graceful, comfortable pleasure vehicle. The handsled of two runners is known to every boy in localities fortunate enough to have snow and ice. It is usually six inches in height, with a flat top large enough to seat one person comfortably. Not infrequently two handsleds are joined together like a bobsled with a continuous board on which several persons may enjoy coasting.

The best American timber for the woodwork of sleds is without a doubt that of the hard-shell hickory, but this valuable timber is already becoming too scarce for the purpose. White oak and other woods are now used and metal is used for parts for which wood was formerly employed. The reason that a sled runs more easily than a wagon on a winter road is that a sled slides over the snow, while the wheels of a wagon crush in, and it is necessary for the team to draw a wagon uphill, as it were, all the time. A sled draws much more easily on a melting day than in bitter, frosty weather. A team can draw twice the load on snow that is slightly soft that it can on the same road with the thermometer registering below zero. It is customary to protect the runners of a sled with a strip or bar of metal called a shoe. Cast iron shoes are better than steel shoes for bare spots on the road. A wooden shoe slides over bare ground more readily than a metal shoe.

A large amount of capital is invested in the manufacture of sleds, but statistics are compiled usually under the more general title of vehicles, so that it is difficult to give a trustworthy estimate of the cost of sleds or sleighs.