86 PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 
these attached to air-tight casks and sent down the stream. At the 
canneries small balconies have been constructed at the water end of 
the building. A man armed with a pair of field glasses is stationed 
here, and as soon as he sights one of these casks he notifies a boatman, 
who goes out and tows in the cask and salmon. About 800 pounds of 
salmon are attached to a keg, and a tag showing the wheel from 
which shipped is tied to the fish. 
In 1908 the first fish wheel to be located in the coastal waters of 
Alaska was operated in the Taku River, in southeast Alaska. The 
wheel was set between two 4-foot scows, stationed parallel to each 
other, and each 40 feet in length. The wheel had two dips, each 22 | 
feet in width and hung with netting. It could be moved from place to 
place, the same as the scow wheels on the Columbia River. It was 
operated throughout the king and red salmon runs, but caught almost 
no salmon, and was not set in the succeeding years. 
For many years the natives of the interior of Alaska have been 
resorting to the banks of the Yukon River and its tributaries in order 
to secure a sufficient supply of salmon to sustain them through the 
succeeding winter. The favorite apparatus of these natives is a type 
of fish wheel of local invention, which has been in use by them for 
many years, probably long before the white man first saw the Yukon. 
A square framework of timbers is constructed in the water and 
moored to the bank by ropes. A wheel, composed of three dips, is 
placed in this, the axle resting upon the framework. The shape of 
the dip is such that the salmon caught roll off it into a trough, down 
which they slide into a boat moored between the wheel and the shore. 
Although crude in construction, it is very effective and a large num- 
ber of them are set each season. 
The Columbia River fish wheel is a patented device. It was first 
used by the patentees, S. W. Williams & Bro., in 1879, and for 
several years they retained a monopoly in its use. A number are 
now operating on the river. The device was not new even when 
patented, as the natives of the Yukon River Basin had been using a 
precisely similar principle for an unknown number of years previ- 
ously, while a similar ‘fishing machine,” as it is called, had been in 
use prior to this time and is still used by white fishermen on the 
Roanoke River in North Carolina. 
REEF NETS. 
As the name indicates, this device is used around the reefs. Under 
natural conditions the reef is covered with kelp throughout its 
length, the kelp floating at the top of the water. A channel is cut 
through this, and in it is placed a tunnel of rope and netting, which 
flares at the outer end, in deep water, and into which is thatched 
grass, kelp leaves, or any other article resembling submarine growth, 
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