Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/472

342 beauty and grandeur and physical interest which engage our attention at every stage of the journey, our volume would end with this chapter, for there would be no room for anything more. One class of objects of curious interest to almost all travellers, though of no special charm to scientist or nature lover, is the fish-wheels at the Cascades. These are very ingenious contrivances set in the midst of a swift place in the stream and made to revolve by the current. As they revolve, the huge vans dipping the water scoop up almost incredible numbers of the salmon which have made the Columbia famous the world over. A weir is built to turn the fish from the outside course into the channel of the wheel, with the result that numbers are taken almost beyond belief, sometimes as high as eight tons a day by a single wheel. Another picturesque sight, both at the Celilo Falls and the Cascades, is the Indian fishermen perched upon the rocks and with spear and dip-net seeking to fill their larder with the noble salmon.

But now to contemplate the works of God and Nature rather than those of man. We must, as already seen, by the necessities of space, ask our readers to share with us only the masterpieces of this gallery of wonders. Probably all visitors to the River would agree that the following scenes most nearly express the spirit and character of the sublime whole: Castle Rock, St. Peter's Dome, Oneonta Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Cape Horn, and Rooster Rock. To these individual scenes we should add, as the very crown of all, the view at the lower Cascades both up and down the great gorge. With the majestic heights, scarred with the tempests and the earthquakes of the ages, swathed