GILPIN ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A BEAVER DAM. 155 



thatch broken, and rafters bleaching in the rain, we cut with our 

 hands and axes through the top. It was composed of a layer of 

 sticks, clay, moss and grasses, very firm and about two feet in 

 thickness. Peeping in we saw a shelf running round the interior 

 which sloped to a central hole at, perhaps, an angle of thirteen, and 

 through this hole we got glimpses of the water, and the arch of the 

 submarine water galleries by which the beaver passed out and in_ 

 Here all was desolation and ruin, but in an inhabited house, the 

 ^ides of the interior are gnawed neatly into line by cutting away 

 the projecting sticks, and lined with grasses and moss. The shelf 

 sloping gently almost to the water's edge, touched by ruin though 

 it was, seemed well fitted for the inmates to rest their head and 

 fore parts upon, whilst their hind pavrs and tail rest in the water, 

 a favorite position of the beaver. The higher and more interior 

 part of the shelf with its v/arm lininof of sfrasses made a snu^ bed. 

 Though we saw none, yet there must be air passages on tlie land 

 side above the water line (and therefore not used for galleries) to 

 afford air. So real was the air of labor and design wreathed around 

 their dilapidated pile of bleached sticks and mouldy clay, that the 

 speculations one has, half sad, of the old inmates of a deserted house 

 as vre wander past the fireless hearthstone, seized us as we floated 

 off. " Got ten dollars out of that house year before last," said 

 James Meuse, bending to the water's edge, as he toiled in shoving 

 our canoe all but high and dry stranded on a carpet of lily pads. 

 Sometimes these domes are seen covered only with clay, and hard 

 frozen, the beavers seemingly caught by the early frosts before 

 finishinof their homes with their rouo^h thatch. 



Hearne. a most accurate writer, describes these structures as 

 eight feet in thickness, and a large dome constructed of many small 

 ones, or wings set off from the central one, some of which having 

 internal communication. No doubt he is correct, and the hisfh 

 northern latitudes and greater abundance of the beaver, makes the 

 difference between the lowly structures I have endeavoured exactly 

 to describe as seen by myself. Seeing a hundred years have passed 

 since Hearne faithfully wrote, there can be no excuse for modern 

 works, aided by the most beautiful etchings, misleading their read- 

 ers, as they habitually do, even down to our own times. 



