66 THE BEAVER 
feet thick. The floor appeared to have been just above the 
water level, and had a bed of coarse swamp grass on it. 
The single entrance which I discovered came into the room 
from under a mass of brush which lay to the east of the house, 
and extended a distance of fifteen feet out from the latter. 
This brush had been stored there as winter food, and never 
used. It was a very efficient vestibule to the front door, 
and doubtless afforded protection to the animals when they 
entered the lodge (Figs. 32 and 33). 
Audubon said that a lodge examined by him had an 
entrance 23 feet in diameter, through which three of his 
companions entered but found nothing. He gives no 
other details as to the size of the lodge. 
Dugmore says that of the two levels he mentions the 
inhabitants enter on the lower and remain to permit the 
water to drain from their fur and to dry themselves. On 
the second floor, a few inches higher, is the bedding material. 
The lower floor is also supposed to be a dining-room. He 
gives the interior dimensions of one house as: 4 feet 10 
inches long; 4 feet 5 inches wide; 2 feet 1 inch high; lower 
floor 4 inches above water; bed floor 6 inches higher. He 
also says that some of the interiors may be as much as twelve 
feet in diameter. ‘This seems very possible, for in the case of 
the large lodges mentioned by him and Johnson, and the 
one on Tower Creek, allowing but six feet thickness for the 
walls on either side, which seems to me more than ample, 
there would still be left 25, 23, and 27 feet for the respective 
greatest lengths of the rooms inside, that is, supposing there 
to be but one room to the lodge. These large lodges often 
have two or more unconnected rooms, and all the lodges which 
I have opened had irregularly shaped chambers. 
Morgan opened a lodge the outside measurements of 
which were 16 feet 4 inches by 19 feet 9 inches; height 4 
feet 6 inches above waterline; chamber 7 feet by 7 feet 8 
