Beaver dam

“ Most beaver dams are so situated that they are destined earlier or later to accumulate sediment, trash, and fallen leaves, and become earthy; then they will, of course, be planted by Nature with grass, shrubby willows, and even trees. I have seen many trees with birds' nests in them standing on a beaver dam; yet the original dam had been composed almost entirely of sticks or stones.
Why do beavers want or need ponds? They have very heavy bodies and extremely short legs. On land they are slow and awkward and in the greatest danger from their enemies, [Pg 35] —wolves, lions, bears, and wildcats ”

“ It nourishes new plant-life. It brings new birds. It provides a harbor and a home for fish throughout the changing seasons. It seizes sediment and soil from the rushing waters, and it sends water through subterranean ways to form and feed springs which give bloom to terraces below. It is a distributor of the waters; and on days when dark clouds are shaken with heavy thunder, the beaver dam silently breasts, breaks, and delays the down-rushing flood waters, saves and stores them ”

“ A beaver-dam thus tends to distribute to the streams below it a moderate quantity of water each day. In other words, it spreads out or distributes the water of the few rainy days through all the days of the year. A river which flows steadily throughout the year is of inestimable value to mankind. If floods sweep a river, they do damage. If low water comes, the wheels of steamers and of manufactories cease to move, and damage or death may result. In maintaining a medium between the extremes of high and low water, the beaver's work is of profound importance. ”

“ Sometimes a small dam will be made—that may ultimately become a big one—by simply digging a ditch across the stream or basin and piling the excavated material into a dam.
Beaver, like men, are unequal in their skill, both in planning and in doing work, and the work of most beaver falls short of perfection. Errors are [Pg 68] not uncommon. More than one colony has commenced a dam apparently without knowing that there was not sufficient available material to complete it. Others have built in the wrong places, and have thus failed to flood the area which they desired to reach or cover with water. ”

“ Having been acquainted with the art of building before man mastered it, the beaver race also probably understood how to do it at little personal expense.
The beaver appears to be distributed in considerable numbers all over the western half of Kansas, although the spring floods sweep away their dams almost every season. Once afterward, when lost on the plains for a day, I came across a beaver dam. Several hours of anxious suspense in the solitude, fearing to meet man lest he should prove a savage, begot a strange feeling of companionship when I came in sight of the rude structure of logs. ”

“ It was on one reach of a smaller stream that we found the Beaver Dam—the only one I ever saw, or [Pg 269] am likely to see, for the race that builds them is nearly done. I had been walking upstream and fishing some small rapids above the others when I saw what appeared to be a large pool of still water just above. I made my way up there. It was in reality a long stillwater, but a pond rather than a pool. It interested me very much. The dam was unlike any I had ever seen. ”

“ BEAVER-DAM. When the beavers have once commenced a dam, its extent and thickness are continually augmented, not only by their labors, but by accidental accumulations; thus accommodating itself to the size of the growing community. At length, after a lapse of many years, the water being spread over a considerable tract, and filled up by yearly accumulations of drift-wood and earth, seeds take root in the new made ground, and the old beaver-dams become green meadows, or thickets of cotton-wood and willow.
The food on which the beaver subsists, is the bark of the young trees in its neighborhood ”

“ Full many a weary hour have I spent, hidden in the brush, watching a nearby beaver dam in the hope of getting a shot, but always without avail. They would appear at other dams, too far away, but never show themselves close enough to be injured. ”

“ The dam is on rare occasions broken by late spring ice-jams. Sometimes the ice-cakes pile up on the dam and raise the water in the pond to such a height that it rises in the house and drives the beaver forth. A few beaver houses that are situated in places where the ice or spring floods may raise the water much above normal level are shaped to meet this trouble. The house is built higher and the room internally is twice the usual height. Thus there is space for the beaver to build a “platform bed” on the floor and thus raise themselves a foot or more above the common level. ”

“ Now, as he paddles along the network of streams which interlace Northern forests, he will hardly be likely to stumble on the beaver-dam of last summer. Beavers do not build their houses, where passers-by will stumble upon them. But all the streams have been swollen by fall rains; and the trapper notices the markings on every chip and pole floating down the full current. A chip swirls past white and fresh cut. He knows that the rains have floated it over the beaver-dam. Beavers never cut below their houses, but always above, so that the current will carry the poles down-stream to the dam. ”

“ Down on the beaver dam, which was built to keep the water from running out of the pond where the animal folk lived, were a number of the grown-up beavers, and they were very busy. They were bringing mud and sticks and stones and grass in their paws, and putting it in a pile near where Grandpa Whackum stood on his hind legs sitting on his tail for a stool. ”

“ There are times when the dam has sprung a leak and must be repaired on the inside beneath the ice. Early thaws and spring freshets sometimes wreck a dam beyond repair, or do extensive damage to the house or dam at the time when beaver enemies are likely to be at their leanest. The house and dam are sometimes ruined when the streams are so low and icy that it is not safe [Pg 207] for beaver to go about. I know of two colonies that were crushed out of existence by snow-slides. ”

“ A small dam may be built up in a few nights, or a number of trees felled, or possibly a long burrow or tunnel clawed in the earth during a brief period. In most cases, however, beaver works of magnitude are monuments of old days, and have required a long time to construct, being probably the work of more than one generation. It is rare for a large dam or canal to be constructed in one season. A thousand feet of dam is the accumulated work of years. ”

“ Ofttimes, too, in building the dam he does it by piling up the material dug from a ditch which runs parallel and close to the dam, and which is useful to him as a deep waterway after the dam is completed.
In transporting trees for food-supply, water transportation is so much easier and safer than land, that wherever the immediate surroundings of the pond are comparatively level the beaver endeavors to lead water out to tree groves by digging a canal from the edge of the pond to these groves. ”

“ This was the kind of an emergency which a beaver will always rise to. Shy as they are, under ordinary circumstances, when the dam is attacked their courage is unfailing. In a moment every beaver in the colony was out among the swirling ice, under the broad, white moonlight which they had not seen for so long.
It was at its very centre, where the channel was deepest and the thrust of the water most violent, that the dam had given way. ”

“ In the huts in winter the mother beaver suckles and rears her young ones. When the family in one cabin becomes too large the young beavers move off and build a home of their own, not too far from the original dwelling, to share the advantages of the same dam. Frequently remains of old beaver dams are found in fields now grassy or under cultivation, but which were formerly ponds or wide curves in the beds of streams. ”

“ For a few moments the lake would be as quiet as though there were not a beaver in the whole shimmering expanse, then a brown muzzle, dripping water, would be cautiously thrust up from some shady corner of the dam, and a careful reconnaissance made. When the beaver had made sure that it was a false alarm, he would call the rest and work would go on as before.
Most of the conical shaped houses, of which there are now about twenty, are on islands or on the bank near the dam. They look as much like a small Indian village, as they do like the abodes of wild animals. ”

“ At the place selected for the construction of a dam, the ground is usually firm and often stony, and when across the channel of a flowing stream, a hard rather than a soft bottom is preferred. Such places are necessarily unfavourable for the insertion of stakes in the ground, if such were, in fact, their practice in building dams. The theory upon which beaver-dams are constructed is perfectly simple, and involves no such necessity. ”

“ By and by these beaver may die or emigrate. The old dam remains, falling to ruin in places. Years go by and other beaver come upon the scene. The old dam is then used for the foundation for a new one. The appearance of some old dams indicates that they have been repeatedly used and abandoned.
New dams, being made largely of coarse materials, appear very unlike old ones. Decay, settling, repairs, and other changes come rapidly. The [Pg 71] dam is built of poles to-day; it speedily becomes earthy and is planted by nature to grass, willows, and flowers. ”

“ The beavers work at the dam only at night, except in an emergency, and each one does what it thinks proper in a quite independent way, though the result is for common benefit. After many years such dams may be 4 or 5 feet high at the channel, and stretch to the right and left across low ground for 50 yards or more, converting the space above it into a broad, grassy pond, having a network of clear channels. ”

“ There also was a beaver-dam across the Old Dam Brook, on the land of Abraham J. Cuddeback, Esq., which also overflowed a tract of swamp and bog meadow land. There undoubtedly have been others in ancient times in this town. These were the two best places in this part of the town for Beaver dams, and were on streams not subject to freeze much.
It appears evident that the genius and natural activity of some animals and birds is greater than that of others, and that all possess thought, memory, discernment, and many of the passions and affections like those of human beings ”

“ It is doubtful if a dam is ever made by felling [Pg 66] logs or large trees across the stream. I have, however, seen a few real log dams, but in these the logs were placed parallel to the flow of water. One of these was in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. Here a snow-slide swept several hundred trees down the mountain. This wreckage was piled on the bank of a stream. Beaver in a colony a short distance away accepted this gift of the gods, and of these unwieldy logs built a dam about two hundred feet downstream from where the avalanche had piled the logs. ”

“ The size of a dam depends entirely upon the wishes of its builders and location and general conditions of land and water. Sometimes the more ambitious beavers build a dam a quarter of a mile in length. They employ exactly the same principle as is used in making a mill-dam. Beavers, however, were building dams long before millers came into existence, and their methods are fully as scientific as those of man. Mill-dams usually run straight across a stream, while beaver-dams are so curved that the water is gently turned to each side. ”

“ The dam is a loosely constructed barrier, seldom in water over three feet deep, and generally rising but little above the surface. As the parts of trees of which it is built are of kinds which easily take root from rods or wands, as willow, birch, and alder, these sometimes shoot up and spread, growing into a kind of hedge, which, catching débris coming down stream, constantly increases the strength and size of the structure. Slight and low as the beaver dam is, it is marvellous that a brute should construct it, and its size is by no means contemptible. ”

“ Most of the population is of German descent. Beaver Dam is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railway. The city is a summer resort, has a public library, and is the seat of Wayland Academy (1855, Baptist) , a co-educational preparatory school affiliated with the university of Chicago. Beaver Dam is situated in the midst of a fine farming country; it has a good water-power derived from Beaver Lake, and among its manufactures are woollen and cotton goods, malleable iron, foundry products, gasolene engines, agricultural implements, stoves and beer. ”

“ The timber about a beaver dam is felled in all directions; but as trees that grow near the water, generally lean towards it, the tree, when cut, takes the proper direction by gravitation alone. The beaver then proceeds to cut up the fallen timber into lengths of about three feet, and to convey them to the spot where the dam is to be situated, securing them in their places by means of mud and stones. The work is commenced when the water is low, and carried on as it rises, until it has attained the desired height. ”

“ It may be used for a few years or it may be used for a century. A gigantic beaver dam may thus represent the work of several generations of beaver. It often occurs that one or more generations may use a dam and yearly add something to its size. ”