The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1888-11-03
THE SALMON WHEEL.
How Columbia Rivers Finny Inhabitants
Are Being Exterminated.

THE SALMON WHEEL.
How Columbia Rivers Finny Inhabitants
Are Being Exterminated.
The man who invented the Column
bia river salmon wheel was a genius.
The LATEST fisherman who ever baited
a hook could ask no easier way of
landing a fish. And only the fact that
it can only be used at certain points on
the stream prevents this machine from
eXterminating the salmon in one sea-
son. Imagine a common understood
wheel with the buckets turned the
wrong way about. This is set in a
high, narrow fume near the bank of
the river, where the current is very
swift. From the downstream end of
the flume, extended outward at an
angle of forty-five degrees, are two
upright fences formed by pickets
driven closely together into the bottom
of the river, and wired to keep them
from washing away. Just above the
wheel (Which is some ten feet in diam
eter), at the upstream end, is a plat
form, from which box-hume runs to
the shore.
Now let us see how it works. When
the salmon are running, as every body
knows, they come up in the Columbia
river by millions. The stream is very
deep and a huge percentage always
succeed in getting to the breeding
grounds in safety. When salmon are
running up a river they are constantly
on the lookout for small streams in
which to spawn. Also where the cur
rent is very swift they are unable to
make Roadway in the center of the
stream, and consequently seek the more
quiet water near the bank. OF these
tr-l instincts the inventor of the fish
wheel took mean advantage. AT the
Cascades, for instance, where the water
is very swift, he sets his wheel. Here
come the fish, hugging the bank by
thousands-great black fellows, from
two to four feet long, heading resO-
lutely up stream. Nothing can turn
them backward. The wonderful in
stinct of nature which insures the
preservation of species is nowhere
better developed than in salmon.
But in this instance it proves
his destruction. Now they are just be-
low that widespread fence. The cur
rent which is rushing through the
fume and turning the big wheel at
Of
The upper fence, which sets nearly
square across the stream, makes quiet
water here, and this flow seems to come
from the bank. This, TO a salmon's
mind, is evidently the mouth of a shall
low creek. Here is a spawning ground
to our liking, and up this little stream
we 60. So they crowd up between the
two narrowing fences to the fatal
wheel The first fish reaches it, goes
with rush to overcome the current,
is caught by bucket and up he goes
high in the air, while every bucket
brings UP another and another, till
there is procession of ascending fish.
At the top the velocity throws the fish
violently upon the platform, from
which he shoots down the fume
to a great tank on the shore.
Here come the fish crowding
ach other forward to that
ousy wheel. None can go under nor
to one side. None will go back. And
once a school starts for a wheel the
owner can consider that he has title
deed to the entire lot.
One wheel will run cannery. Day
and night, while the run lasts, they
come flying up the wheel and shooting
down the fiume in continuous stream:
Fortunately there are but few places
on the river where the wheels can be
worked with this result. Where the
fish can keep in the middle of the
river few can be caught in this way.
But the men who control these points
are making fortunes. AS it is, salmon
are rapidly disappearing from the Co.
lumbla. Many canneries are idle this
season, and the fshermen's price per
fish is rising every year. Surely this
engine of destruction is largely the
cause. LiUerm0re Herald.
-$-S