grow above the place where they intend to build, that they may fwim down the current. They alfo, with wonderful fagacity, contrive that they may have the lefs way to carry them.

After the tree is felled, they cut it into proper lengths, and then roll them into the water, and navigate them towards the place where they are to be used. The caufey raised with thefe pieces of wood, is fometimes ten or twelve feet in thickness at the foundation; it defcends in a flope on the fide next the water, The oppofite fide is raifed perpendicularly like our walls, and the flope, which at its bafe, is twelve feet broad, diminishes towards the top to the breadth of two feet. They drive the extremities of thefe pieces of wood very near each other, into the earth, and interlace them with other takes more fender and fupple. But as the water without fome other prevention, would glide through the cavaties, and leave the refervoir dry, they have recourse to a clay, which they perfectly well know how to procure, and which they work up into a kind of mortar with their tails, and close up

the interftices with it, both within and with. out, and this entirely fecures the water from paffing away. If the violence of the water, or the footsteps of hunters, who pafs over their work, damage it, they immediately fet about repairing it. They build their cabbins, either. on piles in the middle of the small lakes, they have thus formed, on the bank of a river, or at the extremity of fome point of land, that advances into a lake. The figure of them is round or oval, divided into three partitions, raifed one above another. The firft is funk below the level of the dike, and is generally full of water, the other two ftories are built above it. The whole edifice is mostly capable of containing eight or ten inhabitants. Each beaver has its peculiar cell affigned him, the floor of which he ftrews with leaves, or fmall branches of the pine tree, fo as to render it clean and comfortable, Their works, especially in the cold regions, are completed in Auguft or September, after which they furnish themselves with a store of provifions. During the fummer, they regale upon all the fruits and plants the country produces, In the winter

they eat the wood of the afh, the plane, and other trees, which they steep in water, in quantities proportionable to their confumption, and they are supplied with a double ftomach, to facilitate the digeftion of fuch folid food, at two operations. They cut twigs from three. to fix feet in length, the larger ones are conveyed by feveral beavers to the magazine, and the smaller by a fingle animal, but they take different ways. Each individual has his walk affigned him, to prevent the labourers from being interrupted in their respective occupations. Thefe parcels of wood are not piled up in one continued heap, but laid across one another with interstices between them, that they may the easier draw out what quantity they want; and they always take the parcel at the bottom. They cut this wood into fmall pieces, and convey it to their cell, where the whole family come to receive their fhare. Sometimes they wander in the woods, and regale their young with a fresh collation. The hunters, who know that these creatures love green wood better than old, place a parcel of the former a bout their lodge, and then have several devi

cès to enfnare them. When the winter grows fevere, they fometimes break the ice, and when the beavers come to the opening for air, they kill them with hatchets, or make a large aperture in the ice, and cover it with a very ftrong fet, and then overturn the lodge, upon which the beavers, thinking to escape in their ufual way, by flying to the water, and immerging at the hole in the ice, fall into the fnare, and are taken.

The hunters catch vaft numbers of them every year, for the fake of their skins, and bags of caftor, which they bring to the merchants, who fend them to Europe.

OF THE INDIAN RUBBer,

It confifts of a very elastic refin, produced by a tree, which grows on the banks of the river of the Amazons. It grows to a very great height, perfectly ftraight, having no branches except at top. Its leaves bear fome

refemblance to thofe of the manioc: they are green on the upper part, and white beneath. The feeds are three in number, and contained in a pod, confifting of three cells, not unlike thofe of the palma chrifti; and in each of them there is a kernel, which being ftripped and boiled in water, yields a thick oil or fat, which the natives ufe for the fame purposes that we do butter. The juice, which is applied to many different ufes, is collected chiefly in time of rain, because it flows then most abundantly. They make an incision through the bark, and there iffues through it a milky liquor. It is faid, that the means employed to harden it, is kept a profound fecret. Though fome affert, that it thickens, and becomes gradually folid by being exposed to the air. As it becomes folid, it shews an extraordinary degree of flexibility and elasticity. The Indians make boots of it, which water cannot penetrate: they have a method of fioking them, that makes them look like real leather. Bottles are alfo made of this fubftance, to the necks of which are faftened hollow reeds, fo that the liquor, that is contained in