SALMON. 75 



backbones, roes, and livers, which are roasted, 

 skewered on sticks. 



When thoroughly dried the fish are packed in 

 bales made of rush-mats, each bale weighing about 

 fifty pounds, the bales being tightly lashed with 

 bark-ropes. Packing in bales of equal weight 

 facilitates an equitable division of the take. 

 Horses are purposely brought to carry the fish 

 back to winter- quarters, and two bales are easily 

 packed on each horse. The fishing-season lasts 

 for about two months : then the spoils are 

 divided, and the place abandoned to its wonted 

 quietude, until the following summer brings 

 with it another harvest. 



During the drying, silicious sand is blown over 

 the fish, and of course adheres to it. Constantly 

 chewing this ' sanded salmon ' wears the teeth as 

 if filed down, which I at first imagined them to be, 

 until the true cause was discovered. I have an 

 under-jaw in my possession whereon the teeth 

 are quite level with the bony sockets of the jaw, 

 worn away by the flinty sand. 



I question if in the world there is another spot 

 where salmon are in greater abundance, or taken 

 with so little labour, as at the Kettle Falls, on 

 the Columbia river. In all streams emptying 

 into Puget's Sound, in the Fraser river, and 



