During all the early years, down the waters of the Willamette and Columbia came considerable wheat and other grains, but freight rates were so high that little profit was realized by the grower and the acreage in consequence increased but slowly. The lumber exports of the Columbia River region also were large. On Puget Sound, until metal supplanted wood in shipbuilding, numerous cargoes of ships' spars went to the Atlantic seaboard and to Europe, but sawed lumber and piles, with shingles and lath to complete the stowage, were the chief articles of export. Good coal was mined on Vancouver Island earlier than on the American side of Puget Sound, but no considerable shipments abroad began until after 1870. For more than thirty years thereafter the coal mining industry of the Puget Sound country ranked closely after the lumber business and a large fleet of seagoing vessels was constantly employed in the trade. During recent years the use of oil in competition with coal for fuel has curtailed greatly the output of the northern coal mines. It is more than 1650 miles from the mouth of the Columbia to the uppermost point of navigation, but rapids and falls occur at frequent intervals. Until quite recently no continuous navigation of more than three hundred and fifty miles was practicable. Traffic between Portland and Lewiston, Idaho, required the operation of three separate steamers on as many stretches of the stream and still another on the upper Willamette. This made necessary artificial methods of getting freight and passengers around the breaks in the river, and it was not long before an absolute monopoly was held by one company on the Columbia and by another on the upper Willamette, though attempts at independent operation of boats on the latter were frequent. To-day, a steamer can run from Lewiston to Astoria, or, if of light enough draught, to Eugene on the Willamette. In 1850 a wooden tramroad was built on the north side and later another on the south side around the cascades of the Columbia. Late in the 50's the Oregon Steam Navigation Company gained control of them and installed a steam railroad on the north side. About 1860 that company began the construction of a railroad from The Dalles to Celilo, which commenced operations in 1862, during a period of intense mining activity in Idaho, Eastern Oregon and Northern Washington. Thereafter it practically owned the Columbia above the Cascades. The history of its operations and exactions and of the colossal fortunes it piled up for its stockholders reads like fiction.