FISHERIES OF SACRAMENTO AND COLUMBIA RIVERS. 821 



7. By traps and weirs, as at Oak Point and various places on the 

 Columbia. 



8. By fishing-rakes, as at the Lower Columbia, and the Cowlitz tor 

 smelts. 



9. By " twitching-hooks," as at the Falls of the Willamette for salmon. 

 , 10. By spearing, as everywhere, among the Indians, where the water 



is shallow enough. 



E— THE CANNEEIES OF THE COLUMBIA. 



Every one has heard of the canneries of the Columbia. They have 

 well deserved the reputation they have acquired, for seldom has a 

 branch of industry assumed so quickly such large proportions or yielded 

 such large profits to those engaged in it. It is only a very few ye;irs 

 since the first salmon-cannery on the Columbia, commenced operations, 

 and last year (1874) there were fourteen large establishments, employ- 

 ing in the aggregate nearly two thousand men and turning out nearly 

 twenty million pounds of salmon in cans. 



In May, 1875, I visited the cannery of the Oregon packing company 

 carried on by J. W. and V. Cook through whose kindness I was enabled 

 to obtain mnch information about the process of canning salmon, as 

 well as about the fisheries and natural history of the salmon of the 

 Columbia. The Messrs. Cook employ about one hundred and fifty men, 

 mostly Chinamen. They run an average of twenty boats through the 

 fishing season, (from the middle of April to the middle of August) and 

 their buildings which are conveniently located and very methodically 

 constructed cover nearly half an acre of ground. The buildings exteud 

 to the waters edge or rather they are built out over the water so tliat 

 small boats can go under them. In front of the cannery is a platform 

 very firmly built on piles which forms a wharf to which the ocean 

 steamers can run up. At one corner of the establishment, and just in 

 the rear of the wharf is a large rack opening on the river which receives 

 the salmon fresh from the water just as the boats .bring them in from 

 the seines. This rack is capable of holding one or two thousand salmon. 

 From the rack the salmon are passed to the cleaning bench, where the 

 heads, tails, fins, and entrails are removed, and the body of the fish 

 thoroughly washed in three different waters and with a hose. From 

 the cleaning bench the salmon is passed on to the cutter where a system 

 of revolving knives cuts the fish transversely into pieces about 1 inches 

 long. These pieces are then passed on to the canning bench, where 

 chinamen who are required to wash their hands every half hour, cut up 

 the fish with meat knives into pieci s of a suitable size for canning,' and 

 pack them into cans. The filled cans are then pushed on to the next 

 bench where the covers are fitted on. The next set of Chinamen solder 

 on the covers and pass them on to another set, who place them on iron 

 racks and lower them into the boilers. After being suflBciently boiled 

 the cans are taken out, washed, cooled, tested, labelled, cased, and 

 placed on the wharf ready for shipment. In the course of the entire 



