Snoqualmie Falls 191 



sixty revolutions per minute. The falls reveal noth- 

 ing but beauty and glory, dwelling in sparkling 

 mist and wreathed with double rainbows — such they 

 are out there in the sun. Fettered down in that 

 black obsidian cavern, forced to plant their white 

 feet on cyclopean steps of steel, they exert the 

 energy of a hundred thousand Vulcans. 



We do not associate qualities so different from 

 each other, not because they are logically exclusive, 

 but because either of them absorbs us for the time. 

 The black wheels in the black cavern I looked at 

 briefly, but I could sit and gaze at the falls for days. 

 The energy received from the water by those wheels 

 is sent along wires of aluminum to the cities of 

 Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett. There it will light 

 up homes and churches, whirl cars smoothly along 

 the streets, weld iron, grind flour, and in a hundred 

 ways relieve aching backs and arms of severe toil. 



In one of the freshets, some years ago, a two- 

 story frame boarding-house came floating down the 

 river and went over the falls. It was the greatest 

 drop in prunes and salt mackerel ever known on 

 this coast. 



My friend, Mr. Davies, an enthusiastic trouter, 

 dressed me in oiled water-proof, put boots and hel- 

 met on me, took me down the power-shaft, and out 

 through the long tail-race tunnel to the foamy pool 

 under the falls, to catch trout. The wind nearly 

 lifted me off my feet, the deluging storm of rain — 

 the rain-drops big as walnuts — roared on my helmet 



