Nov. 2i, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



343 



heuiselves in the immediate future, and as if to set all 

 human theories at defiance, and to put all rational calcu- 

 lations of immunity from mishap at a discount, under 

 ■very much the same cirumstances as before, I was in the 

 river again, and this time up to my very neck. Well! 

 what wan to be done? Stay there? No, a thousand times 

 no! Even then, although my buoyant theories had been 

 subjected, as it were, to a very dampening reproof , which 

 served to dim somewhat the vista of glorious experiences 

 ahead of me, I still, be it said to my credit, retained pres- 

 ence of mind sufficient to wisli myself out again; and the 

 Artist helped me out in a quiet and unobtrusive way 

 which was quite touching. It was over my head here, 

 and he had to row me over to the other bank before I 

 could overcome the action of gravity and stand under my 

 freshly-soaked and now leaden-weighted habiliments. 

 My set of theories had been drowned— mercilessly, hope- 

 lessly drowned— yet there is this to be said about it, that 

 there is no misfortune but is relieved by some compen- 

 sating feature. The particular bright spot in this instance 

 was, that neither of my mishaps had been observed by 

 either of the other boat's crews. Of course it leaked out, 

 it could not well do otherwise, through the dampened 

 state of my attire; but this was gradually, as it were, and 

 not near so hard to bear as if my dexterity had been ob- 

 served and the humorous aspect of my gymnastic per- 

 formance commented on. The kind remarks that were 

 afterward made, to the effect that I "might as well take 

 my clothes off while I was about it," "Swim the rest of 

 the way for safety's sake." "Lay down in the bottom of 

 the boat," etc., etc., although well meant, no doubt, were 

 received by me, if not with scorn, at least with compara- 

 tive lack of appreciation. The historiographer takes 

 peculiar satisfaction in being able to state that the dam 

 was reached about noon this day without further acci- 

 dent. . 



Here the fishing was supposed to commence, and as 

 'our heavy boats would have to be portaged some little 

 way over the dam, and as it looked like rain, and as I 

 felt a natural desire to "dry up," it was decided to camp 

 here for the night, although the day was but half gone. 

 The promised thunder shower came along, after consult- 

 ing our convenience sufficiently to enable us to raise 

 tents for the protection of our traps. The rain was not 

 very severe, but the thunder served to frighten the trout, 

 for of these we caught only enough to make a good mess 

 for supper. But while we ate the trout — some of us with 

 a ravenous appetite— we were ourselves beiug eaten by 

 flies, mosquitoes and midgets who had appetites as 

 ravenous. Of all pests of the woods. I will put up the 

 odds on ths midgets for downright cruelty to man. The 

 insect is so insignifiant as to size, as to bo almost invis- 

 ible, but then there are millions of them to the square 

 inch, and when one passes through a swarm of them, it 

 is as if passing through a flame of fire. By dint of much 

 "dope" and great smudging we succeeded in making a 

 tolerable night of it. 



The next morning the real fun of rapids running began, 

 for Captain Patterson now promised us a continual series 

 of them to the lake. Now as my ardor had to some extent 

 been dampened by the events of the day before, I did 

 not look forward to this prospect with that degree of 

 equanimity with which I am in the habit of viewing 

 possible events in the immediate future: to a certain ex- 

 tent my star of fortune had paled in splendor; the gurg- 

 ling of* the Brule waters had an ominous sound; there 

 arose before me visions of home and friends, such as ai'e 

 said to float in dreams about old soldiers on the eve of 

 battle. In fact I had lost confidence in myself through 

 the day before, but being blessed with a disposition to 

 accept the inevitable with that philosophical complacency 

 which has always distinguished me in the face of danger, 

 and not only saved me at times from the imputation of 

 extreme timidity, but has .sometimes gained me an ill- 

 deserved reputation for bravery, I started with the rest 

 in the morning, with just as bold a front as if I had 

 never been known to tremble in my boots for anything. 



The first three miles of rapids were passed both suc- 

 cessfully and rapidly, and even a gleam of happiness shot 

 through my mind as I felt the consciousness of power to 

 overcome natural difficulties. Then we hung up and 

 spun around like a top for a while; getting off at length 

 we clattered down another series, bumping here, scrap- 

 ing there, and sometimes, in our frantic efforts to pass 

 some huge boulder, getting broadside on, but kept going 

 just the same. Then we straddled, that is we stuck 

 between two boulders, Avhen the only thing to do was to 

 get out and either pull the boat back against the current 

 or shove her through by main strength. In this way we 

 reached the wild and picturesque region of the copper 

 range, where the old Bayfield road crosses? the stream, 

 and lunched. 



This, so far, had been a glorious day, and on the whole 

 we had all enjoyed it, and none more than the two grain 

 merchants. These two happy "growlers" had prej)ared 

 themselves for a rough sort of a time, with a possible 

 upset or two, but seemed to fall into the way of the thing 

 naturally, and were as well mated as a pair of turtle 

 doves. The veteran Patterson and the "Kid" had had a 

 tussle or two, and had become acclimated to one another. 

 'Tis true — this the Captain imparted to me in all confi- 

 dence — that when he, according to the exigencies of the 

 case, would sing out to the left or to the right of a boulder, 

 as his judgment might dictate, the young attorney would 

 possibly first have to brush from his nose a troublesome 

 mosquito which peradventure had lit thereon, and then 

 proceed leisurely to put on his "glasses," by which time 

 said boulder might be half a mile behind. But after one 

 experience or two, circumstances, combined with the 

 Captain's teaching, made him understand that a little 

 dilatoriness on his part might mean a bath, and so he 

 was led to accelerate his movements, after which the two 

 got along famously. The Artist and I would have made 

 a splendid team if he had only sketched more of the 

 scenery, and lectured less on "high art." He was abnor- 

 mally afraid of getting wet. If the truth must be told 

 he had been led into this excursion under the impression 

 that it was to be a sort of a picnic — so it was to be sure, 

 but not the kind of a picnic he anticipated. The fact 

 was he had been, or was subject to rheumatism, and this 

 was really a bad trip for one afflicted that way. Fortun- 

 ately for my peace of mind, I have myself been afflicted 

 that way, but have never found that a soaking in the open 

 air, or sleeping on good spruce feathers in tents, even 

 though wet to the skin, has ever had any injurious effect 

 on me, so I felt no anxiety on his account, though I admit 

 it was natural that he should have on his own. 



[laving lunched to our satisfaction, and fished a little 

 with indifferent success, we proceeded again in much 

 the same order as before, it being generally understood 

 that the first boat to get over a difficult or dangerous 

 place should tie up and fish until the others had got 

 safely over, or through, as the case might be. In this 

 way wc had passed several 'rapids, and were gaining not 

 only experience, but confidence, when the unforeseen 

 again slipped in and made a sad mess of it all. There 

 was a narrow and ticklish passage between two snags, 

 made the more so by the congregation of boulders both 

 above and below; we were approaching it in good shape 

 to make a successful shoot, when the bow struck on a 

 boulder, and the Artist, who, against orders, was stand- 

 ing up in the bow, took one of the most perfect headers 

 I ever saw. I should probably have stopped to crack a 

 smile at least, if not a joke, but I had time for neither, 

 for the boat swung around with the current, and in spite 

 of my best endeavors with the heavy cedar pole, would 

 have waltzed me through the shoot into the labyrinth of 

 rocks below, had not the submerged Artist recovered his 

 equilibrium and presence of mind in time to grasp the 

 bow and save me from going over. Now, being greatly 

 afraid of a fresh attack of rheumatism, my friend, the 

 Artist, felt as if he must take aU the precautions possible, 

 aud insisted that he must wring out his clothes at least, 

 and, sympathizing with his fears, if not fearing for him, 

 I drew the boat ashore, and left him on the bank to 

 make shift, as best he could, with all the available change 

 I had in my pack,' while I went to examine a little tri- 

 butary stream that just here entered the Brule from the 

 left bank. 



The Captain, with the Kid, came dancing along in time 

 to see the Artist under bare poles; he realized the situa- 

 tion at once and shouted, "Give him my spare pants," 

 and then his solid form, erect in the stern of his boat, 

 like a young giant, conscious and glorying in his power, 

 shot by through the intricate channel of rocks and eddies, 

 into the pool below. Here we found the rest of the boys 

 calmly casting for trout when we arrived, but the jokes 

 at our expense were not numerous, for we had many 

 miles of rapids yet, and the natural question was, " Who 

 next?" 



Not far from here was the first fall of importance, over 

 the principal shoot of which we had to lower the boats 

 by hand, and below this fall there was an unusually 

 savage array of boulders, with seething waters leaping, 

 roaring and swishing about them in every conceivable 

 shape. Now, after our experience, the Artist and I had 

 boldly conceived the idea of being extremely cautious, so 

 instead of shoving our boat into the middle of the cur- 

 rent and taking haphazard chances among the rocks, I 

 proceeded to take a cut off of my own, and so escape con- 

 tact with the greatest obstructions. We never made a 

 sadder mistake, for we were hardly under way when we 

 hung up so badly that with our severest exertions we 

 could not budge the boat an inch; in fact we were not 

 only hung up but saddled and wedged in so completely 

 iphat I had to get out in the water to try and move her, 

 but as the Artist was not provided with rubber boots, and 

 was in deadly fear of being wet, he of course could not 

 get out, so the boat was still too heavy, and the result 

 was I had to pull and haul and shove till "daylight" was 

 nearly out of me: and oh, maddening sight! just as I was 

 about spent with this severe labor, what should I behold 

 but that infernal "Board of Trade," happy and uncon- 

 cerned, leaping from one ridge of foam to another, turn- 

 ing sharply here or there on the very verge of some inevi- 

 table catastrophe, and without the least sign of a mishap 

 reach still water below and calmly proceed to fish. 



In my soul I felt a great and mighty wrath, as though 

 dammed up with a sudden rush of waters, and in my 

 exceeding anger there lit upon me great bodily strength, 

 not so much like that of a patient ox, but rather like unto 

 that of the bellowing bull; and with a mighty heave I 

 tore the ship and all that therein was from her fastnesses, 

 and lodged her in the deepest current of the rushing 

 waters: then I swung myself quickly into the ship and 

 smote upon the waters with my pole of cedar, and gave a 

 mighty shout, and even as the current bore me along 

 into the still waters and deep, my wrath assuaged, and 

 I became gentle and laughed even as a little child. But 

 after this it was not I that ever was so careful as to go 

 outside of the swiftest water. 



A few more swirls after this, but none more exciting, 

 and we went into camp at the foot of a swift run over a 

 pool that promised good fishing, and where we did hook 

 a number of "speckled beauties." Here we calculated we 

 had accomplished about half the distance to the lake. 



The next day opened fair and continued beautiful. We 

 started early, for this day we intended to run most, if not 

 all, the way to the lake, and as we had by this time gath- 

 ered not only confidence in our ability but experience, 

 we felt equal to anything, and had, moreover, adopted a 

 system which we found worked in most cases splendidly. 

 This was that only the stern man in the boat should stand 

 up, watch the heaviest cm-rent, and lay down the course 

 in which he could generally keep and guide the boat 

 with a retarding scrape or push, as the case might be, 

 with his pole, and the bowman should always keep his 

 seat and only shove to the right or left in obedience to 

 orders. By observing this rule, partly laid down by the 

 Captain and partly beaten into us by experience, we 

 found but comparatively little difficulty and much less 

 labor than might be believed in running safely the rough- 

 est rapids. 



It were impossible to recount all the little incidents of 

 this day, so interesting in themselves, but crowding so 

 fast upon one another as to lose then- identity in one 

 continuous round of glorious excitement and pleasure. 

 It was one of those days we so often experience in this 

 climate during the summer months, in which it is a pleas- 

 ure to live for the sake of mere existence. The foliage 

 was now in its highest prime, so the scenery, though 

 wild as the river itself, was always fine, and earth and 

 air seemed permeated with a breath divine. 



Sometimes we would meet an obstacle, such as a great 

 tree fallen across and obstructing the entire width of the 

 stream, where it would be necessary for all to w-ait and 

 render mutual aid till all the boats were over. 



Sometimes it would happen that our fleet were close 

 together, and would be all shooting a rapid in close suc- 

 cession. This would invariably add interest and excite- 

 ment to the passage, for there great care must be taken 

 not to run into one another. The greatest danger here 

 was that one or the other would hang up, and the next 

 coming too close, would either run into it or not have 



room to pass, and so get into difficulty; but no serious 

 complication of this kind happened, and after making 

 several dangerous runs successfully, the Captain in- 

 formed us that but one more fall, or heavy rapid, re- 

 mained between us and the lake. This I was told was a 

 fall of about ten feet with but one possible passage and 

 that well to the left. The Artist and I were the first to 

 run it, and were astonished to find how easily it was 

 done. The "Board of Trade" came next, and would have 

 taken the wrong side of the river but for our signals; 

 the Captain then came down the slide as though he was 

 ashamed it was not ten feet deeper, and then we all took 

 a drink of — water. 



The rest of the trip was simply one great and glorious 

 toboggan slide of ten miles, more or less. Of course the 

 course could not be so straight as a toboggan slide, nor 

 so smooth, for rocks and boulders there were, and swirl- 

 ing eddies. The course of the heaviest current would 

 have to be watched and followed from side to side: we 

 would bump here or there, occasionally hang up on un- 

 foreseen obstacles, and would get into difficulties, but 

 they were comparatively trifling, and glorious vistas of 

 river would occasionally open to our view, on an incline 

 so even and straight, that they could not but suggest to 

 our minds, that though the toboggan simile was a happy 

 one, it resembled, more nearly perhaps, views adown one 

 of the newly graded avenues in Duluth, from the hillside 

 down to lake or bay, with this difference, however, that 

 the still and sombre earth colors of city streets were here 

 a running mass of living waters, reflecting from a thou- 

 sand rippling billows the sky, sun and cloud, so that the 

 river bed seemed, at times a broadway of silver bedded 

 between steep banks of the deepest green. Indeed the 

 varied beauties of this part of the route were so grand 

 and permeating to the deepest sense, that even the grain 

 merchants, matter of fact and dry as they were naturally, 

 could not repress a spontaneous exuberance of feeling 

 now and then, such as "Now this is fine." In fact the 

 latter part of our trip proved so thoroughly enjoyable in 

 every respect that it completely obliterated from our 

 minds any little difficulty or unpleasantness connected 

 with the first part. 



So we passed from the rapids, and slid into slack water, 

 and camped a couple of miles from the lake, about three 

 in the afternoon of the thud day, tired and sore from our 

 exertions, as though we had been pounded in a prize 

 fight, but on the whole contented with ourselves and 

 with not one of our individual experiences for sale. 



Here ends my narrative of the running of the Brule, 

 but not quite that of our adventures, for though the tug 

 Camp, as per appointment, picked us up at the mouth 

 of the river, we got aboard just in the nick of time, for a 

 furious northeaster struck us immediately after, and 

 kicked up such a sea, that had we been yet on shore such 

 a thing as picking us up would have been entirely out of 

 the question; as it was it began to look as though we 

 might wish the tug had not been quite so prompt, for 

 had the wind continued long, with the violence with 

 which it commenced, it would have made our veiy safety 

 a questionable matter. It was easy to be seen too, that 

 neither captain nor crew liked the looks of it, for the 

 weather was so changeable that they did not know what 

 to expect next. The wind quieted down after a little, 

 however, but it had set a most tremendous sea in motion, 

 which seemed to increase in volume constantly. This 

 experience, to those who were free from the nausea 

 usually attending the uncertain evolutions of a vessel, 

 made this not the least enjoyable portion of our trip. It 

 was w T ell toward midnight when the lights of Duluth 

 heaved up above the horizon, and the good tug Camp 

 slipped into the smooth waters of the harbor. Berlin. 



ANNUAL CONGRESS OF THE A. O. U. 



HPHE ornithological event of the year was the seventh 

 _1_ annual congress of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, New York city, last week. The place of meeting 

 was the American Museum of Natural History, accom- 

 modation in which was through the courtesy of the man- 

 agement placed at the disposal of the Union. Here on 

 the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 13, as appointed a year 

 before, all the noted ornithologists of this country who . 

 could so arrange it were gathered together in pleasant 

 conclave. 



The president, Dr. J. A. Allen, called the meeting to 

 order at 11 A. M., and routine business became the first 

 order of the day. 



The secretary, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, read his report, 

 showing the rapid growth of the Union from its original 

 membership of twenty odd members in 1883 to a mem- 

 bership of over 500 at the present time, together with 

 various similar details, all going to show its great and 

 growing prosperity. 



The treasurer, Mr. Wm. Duteher, followed with his re- 

 port. It was characteristic of that gentleman in its clear, 

 concise and businesslike handling, and was extremely 

 satisfactory as a report, for it showed the Union to be 

 now no longer struggling for bare life and supported 

 only by voluntary contributions of the members, but out 

 of debt and a flourishing self-supporting institution, with 

 a handsome balance to its credit. 



The council reported favorably in various proposed 

 changes of the by-laws, after which the annual ceremony 

 of re-electing the officers was carried out with uniform 

 results, excepting in the case of the secretary, Dr. C. 

 Hart Merriam, who, though unanimously re-elected, 

 positively declined to resume the responsibilities of the 

 office, and subsequently Mr. J. H. Sage w r as elected to 

 reign in his stead. 



In the elections to membership over eighty ornitholo- 

 gists were admitted to the outer court as associate mem- 

 bers, and Mr. Arthur P. Chad bourne was elected to the 

 higher honors of full active membership. Mr. Geo. B. 

 Sennett signified his desire to become a life member, the 

 final qualification for which is invested after a ceremony 

 in which the treasurer is the officer chiefly concerned. 



The Committee of Avian Anatomy, represented by Dr. 

 Shufeldt, returned a long and interesting repprt review- 

 ing the ornithological work of the world during the last 

 two years. He especially praised the work being done in 

 Europe by Furbringer and other anatomists, and also 

 referred to his own forthcoming work on the "Compara- 



