The Columbia is not only famed for its peerless scenery, and as being a main artery in Pacific coast commerce, but it is equally noted as affording the most profitable salmon fishing in the world. Hundreds of people are engaged in this industry, and vast wealth has been amassed by some of the large companies who run immense canneries in connection with the fisheries. At certain seasons the fish appear in such prodigious numbers, on their way up stream to the spawning grounds, that they almost crowd each other out of the water. The most successful way of taking the fish at such times is by the use of wheels attached to the end of a scow, which, being set in motion, scoop them up and deposit them in the boat, and so rapidly that thousands are thus taken in an hour. The fish continue their run up-stream as far as the water will allow, and so determined are they that they perform many amazing feats to gain the headwaters, crossing shoals, darting through the swiftest cascades, and even leaping up and over falls of considerable height. The Indians, familiar with the instincts of the salmon, in the season take great numbers by means of spears, which they cast with astonishing accuracy. A chief fishing place is Salmon Falls, where the river is a mile wide and plunges over a wall fully twenty feet high, extending from shore to shore. Notwithstanding this height, the salmon gather in the whirlpool below and suddenly dart up the falls like a flash of light, their tails waving with such rapidity that they are carried up and over the falls. It is while making these leaps that the Indians spear the fish, killing immense numbers, not only for food, but through sheer wantonness, at times fairly filling the river with the dead beauties. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: ROOSTER ROCK, COLUMBIA RIVER.—This grotesque rock, occupying a prominent point in one of the bends of the Columbia River, received its rather inappropriate name from a fancied resemblance to a male chicken. It requires a considerable stretch of the imagination to see where the resemblance comes in, and it is to be hoped the time may come when a more appropriate and picturesque title will be bestowed upon this celebrated curiosity of nature’s creation. Why not call it the Castle of the Columbia? for it certainly looks more like a castle than a rooster. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CASCADES OF THE COLUMBIA.] A SIDE-TRIP TO CRATER LAKE.