The Home of tJie Wolverene and Beaver. 6y 



built they lay birch stocks or trunks covered with 

 their bark at the bottom itself, and, forming a 

 foundation, they complete the rest of the building 

 with so much art and ingenuity as to excite the 

 admiration of the beholders. The house itself is of 

 a round and arched figure, equalling in its circum- 

 ference the ordinary hut of a Laplander. In this 

 house the floor is for a bed, covered with branches 

 of trees, not in the very bottom, but a little above, 

 near to the edge of the lake or river, so that between 

 the foundation and the flooring on which the dwell- 

 ing is supported there is formed, as it were, a cell, 

 filled with water, in which the stocks of the birch- 

 tree are put up, on the bark of this the beaver family 

 who inhabit this mansion feed. K there are more 

 families under one roof, besides the said flooring, 

 another resembling the former is built a little above, 

 which you may not improperly name a second story 

 in the building. The roof of the dwelling consists 

 of branches very closely compacted, and projects 

 out far over the water. You have now, reader, a 

 house consisting and laid out in a cellar, a flooring, 

 a hypocaust, a ceiling, and a roof, raised by a brute 

 animal, altogether destitute of reason and also of the 

 builders' art, with no less ingenuity than commodi- 

 ousness. This, too, is an extraordinary instance of 

 the Divine wisdom and goodness, which, in addition 

 E 2 



