350 Canadian Record of Science 



extent to Munich the valley bottoms in this and the other 

 mountain ranges of Western North America have been 

 changed by the operations of this animal is almost in- 

 credible. In a single valley, for example, hundreds of 

 acres are gradually submerged, and their cotton-wood or 

 other tree-growth is killed. In this way the floor of the 

 valley is cleared of timber. The beaver-ponds, eventu- 

 ally silting up, become first marshes and then by degrees 

 fine meadows. ' ' 



In this passage quoted from Geikie we have a lucid 

 picture of the contrast between the factors of inertia, in- 

 stinct, and intelligence. Ice, unconscious and unknow- 

 ing, alters the surface of the land by the sheer weight of 

 its physical properties; the beaver, conscious but un- 

 knowing, likewise changes the face of nature; finally 

 man, conscious and knowing, transforms everything to 

 suit his purposes. Lodges,* dams, and canals are intelli- 

 gent works, but the ultimate consequences, namely, the 

 beaver-meadows, are unforeseen. 



It is the beaver-made dams, not the glacial dams, 

 about which people, farmers and engineers, anglers and 

 hunters, complain. Without discussing the foundation 

 of the complaints or attempting the quixotic task of 

 stemming their tide, one is free to pose this question : Is 

 it not an extraordinary and unaccountable circumstance 

 that one of the most marvellous instincts implanted in 

 the fur-bearing animals, which had full play for a thou- 

 sand years before Columbus discovered America, should 

 now have become an object of local and individual pro- 

 test? 



From the depth of the peat deposits above the beaver 

 dams about Calumet, A. Agassiz estimated that several 

 of these colonies must have been at least 900 years old. 

 If we accept this estimate as being roundly correct, it is 

 amusing to note that just at the time when the Calumet 

 colonies were being started by emigrants from outlying 

 districts, the beaver in Europe was providing one of the 

 favourite dishes at the celebrated monastery of St. 



