ently discovered that water would not flow 

 through it in the direction desired. Other canal- 

 builders have made similar errors. The beavers 

 were almost human. This part of the canal was 

 abandoned and a new start made. The beavers 

 now apparently tried to overcome the swell in 

 the earth by an artificial work. 



A pondlet was formed immediately below the 

 old pond by building a sixty-foot bow-like dam, 

 the ends of which were attached to the old dam. 

 The brook pouring from the old pond quickly 

 filled this new narrow, sixty-foot-long reservoir. 

 The outlet of this was made over the bow dam at 

 the point nearest to the waiting reservoir of the 

 dead-wood dam. The water, where it poured 

 over the outlet of the bow dam, failed to flow 

 toward the waiting reservoir, but was shed off to 

 one side by the earth-swell before it. Instead of 

 flowing southward, it flowed eastward. The beav- 

 ers remedied this and directed the flow by build- 

 ing a wing dam, which extended southward from 

 the bow dam at the point where the water over- 

 poured. This earthwork was about fifteen feet 

 long, four feet wide, and two high. Along the 

 146 



