Stock Photo - 1957 - Lumbering 'Jumbo' is still preferred to the tractor; A team of elephants belonging to the Borneo Trading Company, which owns large concessions of teak forest in Thailand's Nakonsawan area leave camp for a day's work in the forest. Short, even tusks indicate a placid, intelligent, hard working elephant. 'Jumbo' is still superior to the tractor in the Siamese teak forest but the dog have to beware of the frogman thief; Twentieth century science still hasn't provided a better aid to Thailand's teak industry than 'Jumbo'. No Modern tractor can wears so delicately between the trees and push or pull the heavy teak logs to the river where they are tied into huge rafts of up to 300 logs, each worth -3-400. But so valuable are the logs in raft totals wood worth -40,000) that today the danger is from thieves working in frogmen's suits who 'cut out' a log underwater and float it away by night to cut throat saw mills. Scores of logan are lost each season in this way from under the eyes of the raftmen who live afloat in huts built on the floating logs. Each log when put into the river is marked in waterproof paint and stamped by man for identification. Thus a raft is a known content and thefts are ultimately discovered. To sail a huge log raft down river to Bangkok from the far north of Siam has taken as long as 5 years because of therapids. But more normal shorter journeys from the area where most wooed comes take a few months, during the rainy season when the floods make the river high. In 1957, 50,000 logs went to Bangkok by water, each averaging 150 years in age. Main uses are f or yacht decking, furniture etc. The Borneo Trading company is the oldest company in the area being more than 100 years old. The company sees no prospect of mechanization, preferring its elephants for the work. Each boast has its own life history book revealing interacting statistics of age and size. Some animals have been 'on the cards' force years. With experience, the 'intah' or rider scarcely needs to give any orders. The lumbering elephant instinctively knows what to do. (Credit Image: © Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com)