228 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



England and Middle States. At this early period, 

 their numbers had become so greatly reduced by cap- 

 ture and dispersion that the business of the trapper, 

 within these areas, ceased to be remunerative. In the 

 regions around Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior; 

 upon the head waters of the Missouri and Siskatch- 

 ewuu, and upon the Columbia and its tributaries, it 

 has continued through all the intermediate period 

 to be, and still is, a profitable vocation. After the 

 substitution of silk for fur in the manufacture of 

 hats, the value of beaver peltry greatly declined; 

 thus affording a respite to this persecuted animal, 

 under the effects of which he is now increasing in 

 numbers in certain localities. This is particularly 

 the case on the UjDper Missouri and in the great 

 forests around Lake Superior: but it is not at all 

 probable that they will ever recover, in any locality, 

 their former numbers. In 1862, beaver pelts were 

 worth, at Fort Benton, on the Upper Missouri, one 

 dollar and a quarter per pound against seven and 

 eight dollars per pound fifty years ago. They are 

 now worth two dollars per pound on the south shore 

 of Lake Superior. An ordinary pelt weighs from 

 li to II pounds. 



The Hudson's Bay Company, chartered May 2d, 

 1682, and the American Fur Company, organized in 

 the early part of the present century, have been the 

 principal organizations engaged in the fur trade in 

 North America. Instead of ravaging their districts, 

 as the colonists did, they early adopted a protective 

 system, not only with reference to the beavers, but 

 also to other fur-bearing animals, that their numbers 

 might not become exhausted. Among other regula- 



