SALMON HATCHING ON CLACKAMAS RIVER, OREGON, 1877. 787 



expected that the later-caught ones would be riper. This led to quite 

 an important discovery, viz, that the unripe salmon coming up the 

 river to spawn proceeded directly u[) as far as the rack, and then, not 

 finding a passage through or a suitable place where tliey were, fell back 

 to a spawuing-ground that lay about 80 rods below. This accounted 

 for our always catching green or unripe salmon at the rack. Upon this 

 discovery being made we abandoned fishing at the rack, and began 

 drawing the seine at the spawuing-ground just mentioned, where we 

 found ripe salmon the first time we fished, which was on the 12th of 

 September. 



In the mean time I had begun catching salmon and taking eggs a 

 few miles up the river. A double purpose was accomplished by this 

 step. In the first place, persons acquainted with the river assured me 

 that a considerable number of eggs could be procured there from the 

 salmon, which were then spawning; and in the second place, and what 

 was a far weightier consideration, it had become absolutely necessary 

 to get rid of some Indians who were trap-fishing for salmon a few miles 

 below us. As long as their trap remained in the river below, it was 

 useless, of course, to expect salmon to reach our seining-grounds at the 

 fishery. I accordingly arranged with the Indians through Mr. Louis 

 Barin, mayor of Oregon City, of whose invaluable assistance more will 

 be said hereafter, to take up their trap below us and place it at a spawn- 

 ing-ground six miles above the fishery, and for a suitable compensation 

 to catch salmon there for us to spawn. This served the double purpose 

 of getting additional eggs for the hatching-house, and, what was of the 

 utmost importance, of ridding the river below us of the trap-fishing, 

 which was proving fatal to our salmon-hatching operations. 



The Indians were a poor lot, and did almost nothing, but between 

 them and the regular seining at the fishery we caught enough salmon 

 by the 15th of September to yield nearly 200,000 eggs, which were 

 placed in river-boxes under a temporary brush covering near the shore. 



On the night of this day, which will be always known at the Clacka- 

 mas fishery as Blade Friday, and which well deserves that name, the 

 river rose very suddenly and poured down such a rapid and resistless 

 torrent that it swept away everything we had in the river, including 

 the rack across the Clackamas, the Indian trap above, the corral for 

 confining the parent salmon, and the 200,000 salmon eggs which had 

 been collected in the river-boxes. The mischief caused by this rise 

 in the river might have been averted had we been able to procure defi: 

 nite information regarding the time when the salmon spawned and the 

 character of the September rise in the Clackamas; but information in a 

 new country like this, where no careful observations have been made 

 and no record kept, it was impossible to get. Hence the accident. 

 Enough was learned about the river this year, however, to prevent a 

 similar occurrence in future, A day of gloom and depression succeeded 

 this disaster. With the rack and trap gone, the season's harvest and 



