178 CELL INTELLIGENCE THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



days, and have watched the musk rats construct their 

 houses for the winter in the marshes ; and it is a wonder- 

 ful work, when you take all the conditions into considera- 

 tion. The following is an article which I cut from a mag- 

 azine today concerning the beaver: 



"That the beaver is a capable engineer from his own 

 point of view, and an indefatigable worker to boot, has 

 been impressed upon us from our infancy and is enshrined 

 in our daily speech. Every one knows what 'working like 

 a beaver' means. But few of us have realized that the 

 beaver's engineering feats are of benefit to us as well as 

 to himself. The beaver 'works for the nation,' as Harvey 

 Ferguson put it in an article contributed to The Technical 

 World Magazine (Chicago, July). 'He is one of the most 

 useful irrigation engineers we 1 have,' for he builds dams ; 

 not very big ones, but a great many small dams will im- 

 pound as much water as one large one. His work is now 

 considered so valuable, Mr. Ferguson tells us, that he is 

 to receive special government protection. We read : 

 "The beaver is solving one of the problems which has 

 proved most vexing to engineers since irrigation became 

 prominent in the West. That is the problem of water- 

 supply; for while engineers, can construct dams and 

 ditches, they usually must rely upon nature to furnish the 

 water for the project. And that is where the beaver helps 

 he sees to it that the supply of water is maintained. 



"The beaver does not intend, perhaps, to do all this ; 

 he is simply interested in securing a lake in which to live. 

 But while he serves his own ends, up in the mountains, he 

 also impounds enough water to insure a constant supply 

 for irrigation-projects, and that is why he has won gov- 

 ernmental favor. Officers of the Forest Service, who are 

 doing all in their power to protect the beavers, and scien- 

 tists of the Geological Survey, who have studied the work 



