216 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 



for their faith in castoreum, but they were not 

 altogether alone in their belief, for it is to-day 

 highly prized if we may judge from the fact that 

 it is sold for about ten dollars per pound. It takes 

 the " castors " of four or five or even six beavers to 

 yield a pound of the substance and the demand 

 always, I am told, exceeds the supply. From this 

 we must believe that we do not differ very much 

 from the ancients. 



Besides the castoreum the beaver fat also was 

 considered valuable for medicinal purposes by the 

 Indians who used it, among other things, for pre- 

 venting and curing frost-bite and for rubbing limbs 

 afflicted with rheumatism just as some of the 

 African tribes use the lion's fat. Beaver teeth 

 were employed to some extent by Indians as chisels 

 before they learned the value of metal. 



But perhaps the greatest commercial value of 

 the beaver was the fur which was used for making 

 hats. During the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 

 turies the beaver hat was of even greater import- 

 ance than the silk hat is to-day, and very much 

 more expensive, for the price of a good " beaver " 

 ranged as high as eighty or ninety shillings, and, 

 strange to say, old skins that had been in use 

 were more sought after than new ones. Later on 

 other furs were used for making hatter's felt ; this 

 reduced the demand for the beaver skins, while the 

 discovery of silk plush, as a substitute material for 

 hats, practically ended the use of beaver fur so far 



