Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1914-05-13

BEAVER WAS FIRST
AMERICAN PIONEER

The beaver is the smartest of all wild
animals. He has 81 mental process which
corresponds to the reasoning power OF
man. Also he is a genuine historical
celebrity. No other animal has cut such
a figure in the development OF the
North American continent. Our his
tory With the beaver left out would be
like Hamlet without Hamlet.
Before the white man came beavers
were distributed over North America
perhaps more widely than amy other
animal. The beaver population was
probably densest to the southwest of
Hudson bay and about the headwa-
ters of the Mississippi and Columbia
rivers. Along the thousands of small
er streams throughout North Ameri-
Ga there was colony after colony. dam
after dam. in close succession, some
times as many as 300 beaver ponds
to the mile.
The beaver population. at the begin
.ling of the Seventeenth century was
upward of 100. o00, coo. distributed over
the area OF approximately 5000 900
square miles.
What the beaver did for this con-
tinent, in the Way of making farm land,
may be seen in part even at this late
day. Many of the tillable lands of New
England We're formed by the dams and
ponds of the beaver. There are hun
dreds of valleys in Illinois. Kansas, Mis-
souri,, Kentucky and other states. whose
rich surface was spread upon them by
the activities of the beaver throughout
untold generations.
The majority of dams are made of
slender green poles, which are placed
lengthwise with the flow for the bot
tom and set braced With the end up
side down from a foot or so higher
than the downstream end. With these
are occasionally used small limby trees.
The large end of the tree is placed up
e{,.,, ~, .,,l Ia, -~.Nl n l,,
stream.
If in a current. these sometimes are
weighed dow with mud and stones.
Short. stout sticks and long. slender
poles are deftly mingled in the dam
as it rises. Thus a dam is doubly
sisted. both by the end-on poles that
are parallel to the flow, and by those
Set at an angle to it.
Beaver houses. that are built in a
pond. usually stand in three or four
feet of water. The foundation is laid
on the bottom of the pond. of the size
for the house. and built up a
solid mass to a few inches above wa
ter level. This islandlike foundation
Is covered with Il crude hemisphere or
d~ome-shaped house. the central portion
of the foundation forming the floor. of
the ~loW-vaulted room. which is inclined
by the thick house walls. In building
the house the beaver provides a tenn
porary support for the combined roof
AID wallis. by piling in the center of the
floor a two-foot mound of mud.
over this is placed a somewhat flat
sticks and small poles. These stand
on the outer part of the foundation
and lean upward. with the upper ends
meeting against n above the tenn
porary support. The beavers then
cover the framework with two OF
thr0n foaf of mind hr,,c1. n~l &r~c -~l
thus make the walls ana the roof of
the house. When the outer part of
the house is completed they dig an
inclined passageway from the bottom
Of the pond up through she foundation
into the irregular space left between
walls. And of his space they space a
room by .clawing off the %intruding
sticks. This represents the most high
" developed type of beaver house.
The room is from one to three feet
high and from three to 90 feet across.
The bottom is a kind of burrow and
without either door OF window. Half
buried sticks make a comparatively
dry floor. despite the fact that it is
only a few inches above the water
level.
In many localities the canals or
bitches dug and Used by the beaver
FORM their most necessary and extern
sive works. These canals reuuire en-
ormous labor n much skill. In point
OF interest they even excel the skill
displayed in the construction of the
mouse and dam. 1t is remarkable that
OF the thousands of stories concerning
beaver only a few nave mentioned the
beaver canals. These are labor saving
improvements, and not only enable the
beaver to live easily and safely in
places where he otherwise could not
live al all. but apparently they allow
him to live haDpily
In transporting trees for food supply.
water transportat ton is SO much easier
and safer than land that wherever the
immediate surroundings of the pond
are comparatively level the beaver en-
v to lead water out to tree groves
by digging a canal from the edge of
the pond to these groves. The felled
trees are by his means easily floated
into the pond. One of the simplest
forms of beaver canal Is a narrow out
ward extension of the pord. This varies
IN length from a few yards to 100 feet
or more.
Great Truths.
s From the Ralffrpor, Nyouyr.