only a few feet wide and a few inches deep.
At this spot, high hills approach each other
within three hundred feet, and therefore the
spot was well chosen for a dam stretching
across the stream and the gully. By availing
themselves of the natural advantages of the
locality, and building their dam, the beavers
obtained a pond, covering sixty acres of
ground, and access to forty acres more of
level ground. The side of the dam which
opposes the stream is apparently a solid
mud bank; the other side is only an
inclined slope of interlaced stick work.
However loosely the poles and sticks may
appear to be put together, if you try to take
them asunder you will find them to be tightly
interlaced. In the middle of the dam there is
a curve, up stream, of a hundred feet in length;
but these curves are generally downward, and
seem due to the strength of the current where
the stream is deepest gradually shifting the
foundations of the dam. For the curve is up
stream where the current is weak, and down
stream where it is strong. During freshets, the
dams are submerged, perhaps to the depth of
a foot, and damaged; but when the water
subsides the damage is soon repaired. During
five years Mr. Morgan visited the Grass
Lake dam, and always found the pond at
the same level, whether the neighbouring
streams were high or low, until the sixth year,
when the dam showed unusual signs of neglect,
as if the beavers were about to abandon a
structure which had been kept in repair for
centuries.

The dams attain sometimes considerable
strength. Three men once pulled a boat across
one of them without injuring it. " Upon the
sloping face of the Grass Lake dam twenty
men could stand together," says Mr. Morgan,
"without making any impression upon the
structure."

Dams seem to be constructed as auxiliaries:
for instance, above the Grass Lake dam
there is another dam built to protect it from
freshets of the lake, and below it there is a
dam which, by keeping up the level, slackens
the speed and lessens the pressure of the
current of water. This arrangement is often
found, and the dams may not over fancifully be
called the van, the main, and the rear-guard
dams.

A year or two ago, a colony of beavers,
seemingly of opinion that a railway embankrnent on the
main branch of the river Carp would help to
protect their pond, made a dam across the brook,
and raised it about a foot high, notwithstanding
the daily passage of trains. If the beavers,
however, approved of the embankment as a
ready made barrier, the track-master did not
approve of the accumulation of the water of
their pond against his embankment. Hence
arose a conflict of interests between the parties.
The railway labourers broke down the dam;
the amphibious labourers mended the rents.
The perseverance on both sides was admirable.
Fifteen times did the navvies pull down; fifteen
times did the beavers build up. At length, of
course, the paws and tails ceded the victory to
the picks and spades.

TIME'S HEALING.

TIME worketh wonders in his onward course:
   To those who bear their burdens with meek heart
He lendeth courage, energy, and force.
   Then, " bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

Time creepeth with a feeble ling'ring pace,
   He bendeth down his aged back and stoops;
Yet aids the suff'ring in their toilsome race.
   Then, " bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

Beneath the shelter of his soft dusk wing
   He leadeth on in welcome shade to peace,
And gently smoothens every rugged thing.
   Then, " bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

His scythe, with noiseless surely-sweeping swath,
   Mows down abuses, prejudices, wrongs;
Induces amity, assuages wrath.
   Then, " bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

His kind old hand, for all its trembling eld,
   Hath oft the skill to disentangle knots
That we have hopelessly intricate held.
   Then, "bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

The silent dropping of his hour-glass sand
   Is like the unheard stealing on of " joy"
That " cometh in the morning" from God's hand.
   Then, "bring forth fruit with patience," O my
soul!

ICE.

THE thermometer stood at ninety in the
shade. There had fallen no rain in England
for upwards of six weeks, except an occasional
shower, of no more real refreshment to the
parched ground than a teaspoonful of water
would have been to a thirsty giant. I sat on
the lawn of my cottage under the shade of an
apple-tree, and read the doleful account in the
morning's newspaper of the damage already
done by the drought, and the still further
damage to be apprehended if the fierce sun
continued to stream down upon the world much
longer, without veiling his face with a few
clouds and storms. Brown was the grass and
sickly were the flowers; and the leaves on the
tall tree-tops, though green and fresh, made no
merry rustling to the gentle wind, for the
simple reason that not a breath of air was
stirring. I looked wistfully to the deep blue
sky, in which there was not a speck of cloud
that had a drop of moisture in it, and bethought
me how scant was in ordinary seasons the
gratitude of the English for one of the greatest
blessings of this or of any other country.