guide him. I have seen where they have built a 

 dam across a stream, and not having sufficient 

 head water to keep their pond full, they would 

 cross to a stream higher up the side of the moun- 

 tain, and cut a ditch from the upper stream 

 and connect it with the pond of the lower, and do 

 it as neatly as an engineer with his tools could 

 possibly do it. I have often said that the beaver 

 in the Rocky Mountains had more engineering 

 skill than the entire corps of engineers who were 

 connected with General Grant's army when he 

 besieged Vicksburg on the banks of the Missis- 

 sippi. The beaver would never have attempted 

 to turn the Mississippi into a canal to change its 

 channel without first making a dam across the 

 channel below the point of starting the canal. 

 The beaver, as I have said, rivals and sometimes 

 even excels the ingenuity of man." 



Longfellow translates the spirit of the beaver 

 world into words, and enables one in imagination 

 to restore the primeval scenes wherein the beaver 

 lived : 



" Should you ask me, whence these stories ? 

 Whence these legends and traditions, 

 60 



