102 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



disposition and arrangement of the materials. The 

 result demonstrated that neither stakes, brush, nor 

 poles were inserted or imbedded in the ground, but 

 on the contrary that they were laid flatwise upon the 

 bed of the channel, and held down with mud and 

 earth carried in and deposited upon them. A new 

 dam was commenced a year ago on the main branch 

 of the Carp, close beside the track of the Marquette 

 and Ontonagon Railroad, about twenty-three miles out 

 from Marquette. At the point selected for the dam 

 the Carp is a mere brook, and the railroad embank- 

 ment, which passes parallel with, and a few feet from 

 it, seemed to the observant eye of the beaver to afford 

 some advantages as a barrier, upon one side, to their 

 proposed pond; and notwithstanding the daily passage 

 of trains over the road, they commenced the dam, and 

 raised it about a foot high across the channel of the 

 stream. A conflict of interests thus arose between 

 the beavers, on the one hand, and one of the chief 

 commercial enterprises of the country, on the other. 

 The track-master, fearing the effects of an accumula- 

 tion of water against the railroad embankment, cut 

 the dam through the centre, and thus lowered the 

 water to its original level. As this was no new ex- 

 perience to the beavers, who were accustomed to such 

 rents, they immediately repaired the breach. For ten 

 or fifteen times it was cut through, and as often 

 repaired before the beavers finally desisted from their 

 proposed work. On taking up the remains of this 

 dam the present season (1866), I found that it was 

 commenced with brush and poles, with the bark on, 

 from ten to twelve feet in length, and that they were 

 arranged horizontally upon the bed of the channel, 



