When I wake in the morning I think to inquire into the navigability in general of this upper part of the Columbia and its southern branch, and am handed the report of Captain T. W. Symons, recently made to the department at Washington. Of this he says that the Upper Columbia and Snake form a continuous line of navigable rivers from Celilo at the head of The Dalles to Lewiston in Idaho, but broken by many rapids, rendering navigation difficult and dangerous, the rapids in nearly every instance being caused by rocky bars and occasional boulders, while the channels were crooked and narrow, and the water, before improvement, ruling from two to three feet on the bars, which were practically impassable at low water.
This statement, from including the Columbia River, is misleading. The Columbia below the Snake junction, although having some rapids, especially near Celilo, has been constantly navigated by steamboats of considerable size ever since 1859, when the "Colonel Wright,"—named in honor of Colonel, afterwards General, Wright,—a small steamer, was put on the river experimentally. The frequent rocky bars are encountered in the Snake River between its mouth and Riparia, although the Columbia River steamers used to run, during high water, to Lewiston. After July 1, they were usually drawn off. Some plans for improving the rivers were adopted in 1877.
According to the report cited, the Snake River has a general breadth of one thousand feet, a slope of 2.48 feet per mile, and a discharge of twenty thousand cubic feet per second. All the bars have been improved to an extent which removes all danger to competent navigators acquainted with them, with the single exception of Long Crossing Bar, all the others having three feet of water on them at low water. Navigation below Riparia has been suspended, but quite as much, I imagine, on account of railroad competition as by reason of bars. Above there, where a rich agricultural region still depends on navigation, boats are running. Even far up the Snake a steamer runs between the crossing of the O. E. and N. Railway, and Seven Devils in Idaho, a distance of sixty-five miles north. Still farther up, a steamer plies between the same crossing and a point beyond, but the Union Pacific bridges interfere with navigation, not being provided with draws.
