Science Sketches. 



THE STORY OF A SALMON. 



IN the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the 

 boundary-hne between the dark fir-forestsi and 

 the sunny plains, there stands a mountain, — a 

 great white cone two miles and a half in perpen- 

 dicular height. On its lower mile the dense fir- 

 woods cover it with never-changing green ; on its 

 next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes 

 gives place in winter to white ; and on its upper- 

 most mile the snows of the great ice age still 

 linger in unspotted purity. The people of Wash- 

 ington Territory say that their mountain is the 

 great '* King-pin of the Universe," which shows 

 that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is 

 not without honor. 



Flowing down from the southwest slope of 

 Mount Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the 

 melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens 

 down over white cascades and beds of shining 

 sands, through birch-woods and belts of dark firs, 

 to mingle its waters at last with those of the great 

 Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz ; and on its 

 bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried 



