SALMON HATCHING ON CLACKAMAS RIVER, OREGON, 1877. 789 



capacity to iiiatcU. Some of the buckets were then knocked off' tbe ele- 

 vator and the wheel started again. This time it revolved successfully 

 and was found to be lifting to the flume 8,000 gallons of water an hour, 

 which was quite sufficient for this season's operations, and so another 

 anxiety dropped off', and another forward step was accomplished. Before 

 trusting the eggs to the water-supply now furnished by the wheel, I had 

 the litting apparatus watched two days and nights to make sure that 

 the supply would be continuous. All doubts were removed at the end 

 of forty eight hours, and at noon on the 25th day of September, 1877, 

 the water was turned regularly through the hatching-house and the 

 salmon eggs brought up from the temporary hatching-boxes in the river 

 and placed in the hatching-troughs. This inaugurated the regular work 

 of the Columbia River salmon-batching establishment on the Clacka- 

 mas, which is probably destined to be, for the present at least, the larg- 

 est in the world, and to exercise a very important influence both on the 

 salmon fisheries of the Columbia and on the world's supply of canned 

 salmon. 



Having now succeeded in placing the hatching establishment in suc- 

 cessful running order, the next thing was to make it safe. This was a 

 more serious and difficult matter than one would naturally suppose. 

 The Clackamas Eiver, in the dry season, is a pleasant and quiet though 

 somewhat rapid stream, and looking upon it at that season an uninformed 

 person would never suppose it could prove dangerous to such stanch 

 and substantially-built boats as those upon which our water-lifting 

 apparatus rested. But iu the wet season the Clackamas becomes a 

 furious and terrible river, bringing down in its current immense trees, 

 root, trunk, and branches, the smallest of which would wrench our boats 

 from their moorings, or, if they remained stationary, would crush them 

 in pieces. Consequently, to make the boats safe became as difficult as 

 it was indispensable. It was accomplished, however, by the joint help 

 of a breakwater and an enormous boom. The breakwater was built of 

 3 inch plank, resting on heavy timbers, and so placed as to form a con- 

 venient and perfectly safe harbor for the boats to retire to when required. 

 The breakwater is nearly 100 feet long and is built up so as to reach 

 above the extreme limits of high water. This protects the boats when 

 moved into the harbor, but of course does not save them from drift- 

 wood when they are stationed iu the current. To accomplish this latter 

 result is the object of the boom. This is an immense floating barrier 30 

 inches square and nearly 100 feet long, weighing over ten tons, made of 

 four single squared timbers firmly bolted together. The upper end 

 is chained to a rock in the river, which forms the outside abutment 

 of the barricade, and the lower end extends just outside the boats, form- 

 ing a complete safeguard against drift wood coming down with the 

 current. As above mentioned, the drift-wood is very formidable when 

 the river is high, entire trees, roots and all, with trunks not less than 6 

 or 8 feet in diameter, not being an wn usual sight in the river after heavy 



