1 8 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



Other, and henceforth these two pursued their 

 journey together. 



Now a gradual change took place in the looks 

 of our salmon. In the sea he was plump and 

 round and silvery, with delicate teeth in a sym- 

 metrical mouth. Now his silvery color disap- 

 peared, his skin grew slimy, and the scales sank 

 into it; his back grew black, and his sides turned 

 red, — not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush. 

 He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight 

 as need be, now developed an unpleasant hump at 

 the shoulders. His eyes — like those of all enthu- 

 siasts who forsake eating and sleeping for some 

 loftier aim — became dark and sunken. His sym- 

 metrical jaws grew longer and longer, and meeting 

 each other, as the nose of an old man meets his 

 chin, each had to turn aside to let the other pass. 

 His beautiful teeth grew longer and longer, and 

 projected from his mouth, giving him a savage 

 and wolfish appearance, quite at variance with his 

 real disposition. For all the desires and ambitions 

 of his nature had become centred into one. We 

 may not know what this one was, but we know that 

 it was a strong one ; for it had led him on and on, 

 — past the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the 

 dangerous Cascades ; past the spears of Indians ; 

 through the terrible flume of the Dalles, where 

 the mighty river is compressed between huge 

 rocks into a channel narrower than a village 

 street; on past the meadows of Umatilla and 

 the wheat-fields of Walla Walla ; on to where the 

 great Snake River and the Columbia join ; on up 

 the Snake River and its eastern branch, till at last 



