five or six feet high. This expanded as it rolled 

 into the pond and swept far out on the sides, 

 while the front, greatly lowered, rushed over the 

 dam. Much of this water was caught and tem- 

 porarily detained in the ponds, and by the time 

 it poured over the last dam its volume was 

 greatly reduced and its speed checked. The 

 ponds had broken the rush and prevented a 

 flood. 



Every beaver pond is a settling-basin that 

 takes sediment and soil from the water that 

 passes through it. If this soil were carried down 

 it would not only be lost, but it would clog the 

 deep waterway, the river channel. Deposited 

 in the pond, it will in time become productive. 

 During past ages the millions of beaver dams in 

 the United States have spread soil over thou- 

 sands of square miles and rendered them pro- 

 ductive. Beavers prepared the way for numer- 

 ous forests and meadows, for countless orchards 

 and peaceful, productive valleys. 



The Moraine colonists gathered an unusually 

 large harvest during the autumn of 1909. Seven 

 hundred and thirty-two sapling aspens and 



41 



