364 EARLY NOTICES OF THE BEAVER. 



and all the ponds they builded dams, and enlarged and deepened them to the 

 height of the dams. Even to grounds occasionally overflowed by heavy rains they 

 also made dams, and made them permanent ponds, and as they heightened the 

 dams increased the extent and added to the depth of water ; thus all the low lands 

 were in possession of the beaver and all the hollows of the higher grounds ; small 

 streams were dammed across, and ponds formed on the dry land, with the dominion 

 of man contracted. Every where he was hemmed in by water without the power of 

 preventing it; he could not diminish their numbers half so fast as they multiplied, 

 their houses were proof against his pointed stake, and his arrows could seldom 

 piei'ce their skins.* In this state man and the beaver had been for many centuries, 

 but the discovery of Canada by the French, and their settlement up the St. Law- 

 rence, soon placed the natives far superior to the beavers. Without iron man ia 

 weak, very weak, but armed with iron he becomes the lord of the earth ; no other 

 metal can take its place. For the furs which the natives traded they procured 

 from the French, axes, chisels, knives, spears, and other articles of iron, with 

 which they made good hunts of the fur-bearing animals, and procured woollea 

 clothing. Thus armed the houses of the beavers were pierced through, the dams 

 cut, and the water of the ponds lowered or wholly run off, and the houses of the 

 beaver and their burrows laid dry, by which they became an easy prey to the 

 hunter. 



" The average weight of a full grown male beaver is about fifty -five pounds, his 

 meat is agreeable to most, although the fat is oily ; the tail is a delicacy. They 

 are always in pairs, and work together. Their first business is to ensure a suffi- 

 cient depth and extent of water for the winter, and if nature has not done this for 

 them they make dams to obtain it. If there are more families than one in a piece 

 of water they all work together, each appearing to labor on a particular part. The 

 dam is made of earth, and pieces of wood laid oblique to its direction. The 

 wood employed is always of aspen, poplar, or large willows and alders; if 

 pine is used it is through necessity not by choice ; the bottom is well laid, and if 

 small stones are at hand they make use of them for the bottom of the dam ; the 

 «arth is brought between their fore paws and throat, laid down, and by several 

 strokes of the tail made compact ; the pieces of wood are with their teeth, which 

 are very sharp and formed like small chisels, cut into the lengths they want, 

 brought to the dam and worked in, and thus the dam is raised to the height re- 

 quired. It is a remark of many that dams erected by the art of man are fre- 

 quently damaged or wholly carried away by violent freshets, but no power of 

 water has ever carried away a beaver dam. Having secured a sufficient depth of 

 water each family builds a separate house ; this is in the form of a low dome ; from 

 the doorway, which is a little way in the water, gradually rising to about thirty 

 inches in height and about six feet in diameter ; the materials ai-e the same as 

 those of the dam and worked in the same manner, only the pieces of wood are 

 much shorter, and if at hand small flat stones are worked in. The coating of 

 the first year may be about four to five inches thick, and every year an additional 

 coat is added, until it is a foot or more in thickness, grass then grows upon it and 



* In my travels thousands of the natives were not half so well armed.— D. T. 



