Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/66

56 the north side, within a distance of six miles, known as the Lower, Middle, and Upper Cascades. Pretty as the name is, we weary of it when it is continually in our mouths.

It is a pretty spot, too, this Lower Cascades, surrounded by majestic mountains, and bordered by a foaming river; charmingly nestled in thickets of blossoming shrubbery, and can regale its guests on strawberries and mountain-trout. Here the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has a wharf and warehouse, and here we take our seats in the cars which transfer us to the Upper Cascades, and another steamer. We find the change agreeable, as a change, and enjoy intensely the glimpses of the rapids we are passing, and the wonderful luxuriance of vegetation on every side, coupled with the grandeur of the towering mountains.

At the Upper Cascades is a block-house, reminding us of the Indian war of 1855-56, and another one about the middle rapids. The scene looks peaceful enough now to make the history of these forts seem very legendary.

Aside from scenic features, there is a great deal to interest one at this place. One object of curiosity and surprise is the immense wheels for taking salmon. A wheel is generally forty feet in diameter, and eight feet from disk to disk. In place of paddles, there are three buckets or pouches of strong wire screening. The wheel, attached to a shaft, may be raised or lowered at the will of the operator; and the buckets are so constructed that whatever enters them is thrown to the centre of the wheel, where an opening above water-line delivers them into a large tank. Each bucket, when fish are running well, will turn into the tank seventy-five fish per minute, or two hundred and twenty five for one wheel every sixty seconds. As a wheel is kept going quite constantly through the season, and as there are about two .dozen of them in motion on the river, we have an opportunity to exercise our arithmetical skill in estimating the quantity of salmon taken by this method every season.

The rapids at the Cascades are five miles in length, and the fall of the river is about sixty feet, the bed of the stream being formerly choked up with rock in such a manner as to suggest recent volcanic agency. The government has expended some