202 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



is excavated across the neck, and appears in the right 

 side of the engraving. It is one hundred and eighty- 

 five feet long, three feet wide, and about fifteen inches 

 deep. When the dam below (No. 14) was in repair 

 and the pond full, it would be about four feet wide 

 and three feet deep. No other object for these exca- 

 vations can be assigned, except to shorten the distance 

 in going up and down the river. There was no hard 

 wood in its vicinity. Alder bushes were growing on 

 both sides of the canal, which were cut away on one 

 side to show the water within it. The evidence is 

 less conclusive that these excavations are artificial 

 than in the case of the canals before described.^ 



In some cases similar excavations are made across 

 islands in their ponds, where they are long, for the 

 obvious purpose of saving distance in going around. 

 In the Chippewa River, in Lower Michigan, there is a 

 pond, covering several hundred acres of land, formed 

 by a beaver dam, in which there is a low island of firm 

 earth nearly a mile in length. Across this island there 

 are two such canals about five hundred feet long, exca- 

 vated by the beavers for the purpose of a water transit 

 over the island. They were described to me, with 

 their dimensions, by the Rev. Mr. Johnson, for many 



^ The Ojibwas discriminate this variety of canal from the other, 

 and call it o-ne-ge'-gome (from nee-geek', otter), signifying " otter 

 crossing," from the use the otter is known to make of them. 

 The otter is a "gay and festive" animal. He does not slide 

 down hill upon the frozen snow after the fashion of the Polar 

 bears described by Dr. Kane ; but, coiling himself up in the form 

 of a hoop, with his tail in his mouth, he will roll down a hill 

 upon the snow-crust with great velocity. Father De Sraet, be- 

 fore referred to, witnessed this performance of an otter in Wash- 

 ington Territory. 



