THE COMMON BEAVER. 4lf 



with branches of trees ; filling them up with clay, 

 stones, and sand ; which they ram so firmly down, 

 that though the dams are frequently a hundred feet 

 long, Capt. Cartwright says, he has walked over them 

 with the greatest safety. These are ten or twelve 

 feet thick at the base ; gradually diminishing towards 

 the top, which is seldom more than two or three feet 

 across. They are exactly level from end to end ; 

 perpendicular towards the stream ; and sloped on the 

 outside, where grass soon grows, and renders the 

 earth more united. 



The houses are constructed with the utmost inge- 

 nuity ; of earth, stones, and sticks, cemented to- 

 gether, aad plastered in the inside with surprising 

 neatness. The walls are about two feet thick ; and 

 the floors so much higher than the surface of the 

 water, as always to prevent them from being flooded. 

 Some of the houses have only one floor ; others have 

 three *. The number of Beavers in each house is from 

 two to thirty. These sleep on the floor, which is 

 strewed with leaves and moss ; and each individual 

 is said to have its own place. When they form a 

 new settlement, they begin to build their houses in 

 the summer ; and it costs them a whole season to 

 finish the work, and lay in their winter provisions,-— 

 eonsisting principally of bark and the tender branches 

 of trees, cut into certain lengths, and piled in heaps 

 under the v.ater -}-. 



* DiiPratzsays, (hat in one he examined, he found no fewer than 



fifteen different cells. 



. t The Indians. oI)servc the quantity that tl'.e B-^avers lay up; as a 

 guide in judging 'vhat will be the mildness or severity of the approach- 

 ing season. 



Vol. I. E e 



