[9] EXPLORATIONS ON COLUMBIA RIVER. 245 



favorable places for collecting salmon eggs, but at present they are not 

 easily accessible. About 20 miles below the Big Sandy, the Willamette* 

 slowly discharges its immense volume of water into the Columbia, which 

 here seems not much larger than itself. If the slow Willamette poured 

 its great stream into the Columbia as rapidly and forcibly as the 

 Deschutes does, probably more than half of the Columbia River salmoQ 

 would turn aside into the Willamette, but the Willamette is so still 

 and apparently so almost motionless where its waters join those of the 

 Columbia that but few salmon, relatively speaking, ascend the Willa- 

 mette. Most of those entering the river find their way up past the city 

 of Portland, and on 12 miles further to the Clackamas. This is a cold,, 

 swiftly-running river that empties into the Willamette just below Ore- 

 gon City; its cold, swift current, which heads in the snow-covered flank 

 of Mount Hood, attracts a large proportion of the salmon from the 

 larger but warmer river, and even those that go by go only half a mile 

 further, where their course is abruptly checked by the Oregon City 

 Falls, which, at most stages of water in the river, entirely prevent the 

 salmon from going any farther up. The salmon thus arrested in their 

 upward jjrogress along the Willamette, after making ineffectual attempts 

 to jump the falls, after awhile drop back discouraged as far as the mouth 

 of the Clackamas, and as soon as they feel again the cold vigorous rusk 

 of the Clackamas, immediately sh-oot up this river and join the great army 

 of salmon that have preceded them up the same river. It will be in- 

 ferred from this description that most of the salmon coming up the 

 Columbia finally find their way into the Clackamas. This inference is 

 entirely true. It was this which led to the establishment of a salmon- 

 breeding station on this river in 1877 by the Oregon and Washington 

 Fish Propagating Company. This station, which a series of mis- 

 fortunes caused to be finally abandoned, is undoubtedly well situated 

 for the taking of a great many salmon eggs. It is, however, somewhat 

 difficult to operate it, and perhaps it will be found that some other 

 point farther up the basin of the Columbia will combine many of its 

 advantages without being subject to its disadvantages. 



From the mouth of the Willamette to the sea all the streams empty- 

 ing into the Columbia are short and small, and there are none which 

 would command a moment's attention as a suitable place for a large 

 salmon-breeding station. 



From what has been stated above, it will be seen that from the head 

 of the Islorth or Clarke's Fork, which forms one of the two great arteries 

 that combine to form the Columbia — tjie Snake Eiver being the other — 

 and which rises in the Continental divide of the Eocky Mountains be- 

 tween Deer Lodge and Helena, Mont., to the Pacific Ocean, there is not 

 a place lying near the line of the Northern Pacific which unites all the 

 conditions required for the carrying on of a salmon-breeding station on 

 a large scale, except possibly the one referred to on the Little Spokane 



* One hundred and eight miles from the mouth of the ColuKibia. 



