440 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



from Oregon. I continued sending to this spot for poles until they re- 

 ported the stock exhausted. We then scoured the woods in the imme- 

 diate neighborhood of the camp, and gathered in all the scattering ones 

 that could be found till these were gone. There were still many more 

 needed, which were obtained from various quarters, and packed into 

 camp on the shoulders of the men employed. 



The poles having been secured, the fence forming the dam was con- 

 structed on shore in sections, which, when completed, were taken to the 

 bridge, and dropped into the water at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees 

 with the perpendicular of the bridge. The upper side of each section 

 being now firmly spiked to the timbers of the bridge, the current, strik- 

 ing it at the angle mentioned, forced the bottom of the fence very 

 tightly against the river-bed. All the sections being thus placed, rocks 

 were then piled up around the bottom of the fence and thrust into any 

 crevices which the salmon might get through, and, this work having 

 been extended entirely across the river, the bridge and dam were ren- 

 dered complete. 



The next thing was to build the corrals. These were constructed on 

 the plan of the dam. Two of them, one opening into the other, formed 

 an inclosure of about 50 by 20 feet. They were built on the east 

 side of the river, and communicated, by a mouse-trap gate or opening, 

 with the main stream, so that the salmon could run up into the corral, 

 but could not return. The other corral was constructed on the same 

 plan, about the middle of the river. As an illustration of the work 

 performed on the bridge, I will say that two thousand 2-inch auger- 

 holes were bored under the scorching sun, and no less than two hundred 

 tons of rocks were used in the construction of the dam and corrals, all 

 of which were taken, one by one, and put in their place by hand. 



About four o'clock in the afternoon, a few days after the passage 

 of the salmon was obstructed, and before the corrals were made, it was 

 announced that the salmon were making their first assault upon the 

 dam. The whole camp collected on the bridge to witness the attack. 

 It was a sight never to be forgotten. Eor several rods below the bridge 

 the salmon formed one black, writhing mass of life. Piled together one 

 above another, they charged in solid columns against the bridge and 

 dam, which trembled and shook continually under their blows. Not 

 daunted by their repeated failures, they led attack after attack upon 

 the fence, one column succeeding as another fell back. Encouraged by 

 their numbers, and urged on by their irrepressible instinct, they entirely 

 disregarded the observers on the bridge, and struggled at their very 

 best to pass the unwonted obstruction. Finding the fence impassable, 

 many fell back a little and tried to jump the bridge. This several suc- 

 ceeded in doing, sometimes violently striking the men on the bridge in 

 their leaps, and sometimes actually jumping between their feet. 



For an hour and a half this fierce assault continued, when, ex- 

 hausted by their efforts and discouraged by many failures, they fell 

 back to the deep hole just below the rapids, arrested, for the first time 



