188 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



we were surprised to find the sand in which they had been laid, 

 where in contact with the pipes, very compact and brown in co- 

 lour. On breaking some of the masses, we found the connecting 

 matter to be brown iron ore, and in cavities of the compacted 

 sand this brown iron ore, exhibiting that particular lustre ap- 

 proaching to adamantine, and the reniform shape with the granu- 

 lated surface of brown hematite. Here, then, we have an instance 

 of the formation, by the action of percolating water on the iron 

 of the pipes, of an ore of iron which some observers arrange with 

 the igneous mineral formations. — Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 

 xiii. 193. 



10. On the Habits of Beavers. By M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire. — 

 A beaver has lived in the menagerie of the king's garden for 

 some years ; it is one of those from the Rhone, which live sepa- 

 rately like water-rats. This animal was defended from the cold 

 of winter only by a more abundant litter. It happened one night 

 that the cold had increased ; the shutters of the hut closed but 

 badly, and the beaver was urged to find means of preserving itself 

 from the effects of a very rigorous temperature. It had been 

 the custom to give it a certain number of fresh branches to sa- 

 tisfy its desire of gnawing, and occupy it during the night, these 

 were found stripped of the bark in the morning ; food also was 

 given it, consisting of greens and fruits, of an evening, before 

 shutting it up, by closing the shutter, which was made like a pent- 

 house. It had snowed too, and the snow had collected in one cor- 

 ner of its hut. 



Such were the materials which the beaver, in this instance, 

 possessed to form a wall of defence against the external air and 

 cold ; the branches were interwoven between the bars of the hut, 

 exactly in the way that basket-makers interweave the small 

 osiers round the principal stems, going from one to the other by 

 contrary turns. Thus arranged, they left intervals, in which the 

 beaver placed the carrots, potatoes, and litter which remained, 

 each substance being cut so as to occupy and fill the spaces left. 

 Finally, as if the animal knew that the whole should be co- 

 vered with a compact cement, he employed the snow to fill 

 even the smallest aperture which remained. The wall filled 

 up two-thirds of the gap, and every thing which had been given 

 to the animal, even the whole of its food, was employed in the 

 construction. 



In the morning, the snow having frozen between the branches 

 and the shutter, the latter adhered to the new wall; when, how- 

 ever, removed, the work of the beaver became exposed. The boy, 

 who attended to the animal, was so surprised at this unexpected 

 production, that he came and informed me of it before any thing 

 was deranged. — Mem. de Mus. xii. 232. 



