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CHAPTER IV. 
Bravers NourtsHine STREAMS—Some PRACTICAL 
ILLUSTRATIONS—WantToN DESTRUCTION. 
ASTEFUL and unnecessary as was the de- 
struction of the wild buffalo herds on the 
‘Upper Missouri and country tributary thereto by the 
hide hunters and wolfers, the destruction of the beavers 
along water courses of the same range was fully 
as inexcusable besides being positively detrimental to 
the water courses themselves by the destruction through 
neglect and disuse of the great chain of reservoirs: 
established by the beavers and used so beneficially in 
the life of these long and narrow streams that wind 
their serpentine way across the face of great treeless 
plains. 
While the writer had made note of the beautiful ap- 
pearance of the ‘‘beaver streams” while crossing the 
great plains of Nebraska and eastern Colorado in 1864 
and 1865, it was not until my arrival on such streams 
as Knife River and the upper White Earth River that 
Cpportunity came for a more careful observation and 
better acquaintance with the results of beaver occupancy 
vs. water supply. 
The lower or Great Knife River will be a fair illustra- 
tion to begin with. This stream heading near Tocsha 
Kute or Killdeer Mountain in what is now known as 
Mercer county, N. D., and is about seventy-five miles 
in length—separated into two principal forks about 
twenty miles up from the main stream’s confluence with 
