2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



living being. It was a fish, a curious little fellow, only half an inch 

 long, with great, staring eyes which made almost half his length, and a 

 body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little 

 salmon, a very little salmon, but the water was good, and there were 

 flies, and worms, and little living creatures in abundance for him to 

 eat, and he soon became a larger salmon. And there were many more 

 little salmon with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had 

 a merry time. Those who had been born soonest and had grown 

 largest used to chase the others around and bite off their tails, or, still 

 better, take them by the heads and swallow them whole, for, said they, 

 " Even young salmon are good eating." " Heads I win, tails you lose " 

 was their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became 

 united into one larger one, and the process of " addition, division, and 

 silence," still went on. 



By-and-by, when all the salmon were too small to swallow the 

 others, and too large to be swallowed, they began to grow restless and 

 to sigh for a change. They saw that the water rushing by seemed to 

 be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and one of them suggested that 

 its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its 

 course. Then they all started down the stream, salmon-fashion, which 

 fashion is to get into the current, head up-stream, and so to drift 

 backward as the river sweeps along. 



Down the- Cowlitz River they went for a day and a night, finding 

 much to interest them which we need not know. At last, they began 

 to grow hungry, and, coming near the shore, they saw an angle-worm 

 of rare size and beauty floating in an eddy of the stream. Quick as 

 thought one of the boys opened his mouth, which was well filled with 

 teeth of different sizes, and put it around that angle- worm. Quicker 

 still he felt a sharp pain in his gills, followed by a smothering sensa- 

 tion, and in an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into the air. 

 This was nothing new to them, for they often leaped out of the water 

 in their games of hide-and-seek, but only to come down again with a 

 loud splash not far from where they went out. But this one never 

 came back, and the others went on their course wondering. 



At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia join, 

 and they were almost lost for a time, for they could find no shores, 

 and the bottom and the top of the water were so far apart. Here they 

 saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, 

 turning neither to the right nor left, but swimming straight on up just 

 as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would not stop for 

 them, and would not lie and float with the current. They had no 

 time to talk, even in the simple sign-language by which fishes express 

 their ideas, and no time to eat. They had an important work before 

 them, and the time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping 

 their great purposes to themselves, and our little salmon and his 

 friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream. 



