Show I UIl S NATURE BEAVER CUTS MARK IN WORLDS WORLD'S HISTORY BY ARTHUR H il PACK President The American Nature Association Thousands of ot years cars before the first stone hatch bound hound with wilh raw raw- h lide e to a II branch and wielded by borne ome lusty fellow of ot long lont ago hipped out a L deep scar In the I base of some come lofty tree tre until It I tell fell the beaver with his chisel shaped had hael found out oui hew how it should be done And ages ates before men with with walls ot of rock and concrete had built I londs and canals the same sam wise animal had dammed his hi streams and was ratting ratline the timber which ho had felled to the th point where he wished to use it FLOODS LOWLANDS Dy raising the level leel of his tiny stream until it became deep enough for his winter house hour of sticks flicks and mud and afforded aCCorded him hima a ft clear entrance beneath the thick Ice Sc of ot the northern winter the Iea beaver r often otten flooded treat great l stretches retches of lowlands The forest was flooded and Itil l As time tim went on this lake grew shallow from the th sediment 1 down by tho the spring floods I and nd from the growth crowth and decay of generations of water plants Some calamity wiped out the busy husy community or the site sile was tot fog fo some som other reason 1 he stream flowing as the ele- ele ele elements ments dictated once one more carved out for Itself n a course through Its Tilled rUled up valley In the rich soil on Its borders I grew a II crop ot of o rich meadow madow grass with cranberry and leather seat ic-at topping over Pink orchid and ami pitcher plants The face fac ot of the was entirely changed GREED CLAIMS LIVES Perhaps Perhaps- ere this came the trap trop trapper trapper per braving bra the th wild beasts and wilder people ot of o the wilderness to I harvest the rich brown coat so I I prized by men Sooner or later the last of ot the th bravo bra race of o bEav beaT j r frs rs gave o up their lives to mans man's greed Only their dams dame and ruin ruin- y were left to mark the vanished kingdom Then came cam the settler planting his homo home horn beside the nh rill whore here ages before lefore the beaver heaver had built his lowly citadel The broad level I meadow which once was a beaver bener benerI I pond became t the e mowing field of the be newer ne owner In the older settled regions the beaver whose hose patient toil toll had made possible the fair prospect is Is forgotten s save ve where tradition has marked some stream where once h lived li I I Send a stamped addressed en envelope and questions of fact las hav-las hay hay- lug to do with nature will be an i an by the th consulting staff of Nature Magazine ot of Washington through arrangements made mad Wi this paper |