1894. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 177 
ACCOUNT OF AN ANCIENT BEAVER POND AND OF 
CUTS ews FOUND THEREIN 
By Proressor OLiver P. HUBBARD. 
About 1860 Mr. Wm. H. Daniels, of Plainfield, Sullivan 
County, N. H., requested me to examine some localities on his 
ancestral farm that had been occupied by his family for 60 years. 
This was a hill farm of 300 to 400 acres, a mile from the Con- 
necticut River, and with a southwesterly drainage to it. One 
spot of 12 acres lying in a side hill valley, sometimes wet, and 
partially cultivated, was covered with heavy grass mowed an- 
nually. There stood on it a stump of a pine tree, over 4 feet 
in diameter, which was cut between 1840 and 1850, when the 
clearing was begun. On the lower or drainage side was a com- 
pact earthy barrier of true “ glacial drift.” 
“ The original forest contained the usual varieties that grow in 
this climate on wet land, and you counted on the stump over 
600 grains”’ (rings ”).* 
To bring this fertile area most easily under cultivation, Mr. 
Daniels cut, by my advice, two trenches. One was 30 to 40 rods 
long and was intersected by the other at its middle point. The 
latter was 40 to 50 rods long,and each was 4 feet wide at the top, 
and 4 or5 feet deep. They penetrated for nearly their entire depth, 
a deposit of dark, peaty, vegetable matter to the bottom of a basin. 
The immediate bottom was thickly covered with short sticks of 
hard and soft woods, of a peaty color, from 6 to 18 inches long, and 
from | to 6 inches in diameter. Some of these resembled poplar, 
hemlock and iron-wood. The ends were marked as if gnawed 
by incisor teeth, as is seen in trees and fragments taken from 
beaver dams. An inspection suggests this as the only agency 
in their production.+ Two fragments of bone 4 inches long have 
been submitted to Prof. Scott, of Princeton, for examination. 
Admitting the agency of beavers we have here a curious suc- 
cession of facts after the end of the glacial period. (1) A 
natural basin holding water and a young forest covering the 
country. (2) A migration of companies. of beavers from the 
South taking possession and occupying it fora long time, cov- 
ering the entire bottom with sticks. (3) The rodents at some 
time departed voluntarily or were driven out by some change in 
the physical condition, whereby (4) There was an influx of sedi- 
* Letter of Mr. Daniels, Dec. 7, 1874. 
+ This was the united opinion of the Academy on viewing the specimens. 
TRANSACTIONS N. Y. AcaD. Sct., Vol. XIII, Sig. 12, May 28, 1894, 
