Encyclopædia americana. A popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, a new ed.; including a copious collection of original articles in American biography; on the basis of the 7th ed. of the German Conversations-lexicon. Ed. by Francis Lieber, assisted by E. Wigglesworth ...

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER-BEAVER. 23
pleasing the public at times induces them which, when they build on a running
to deviate fiom a correct standard of stream, is always cut higher up than the
taste. They succeed best in comic scenes. place of their residence, and floated down.
Their contemporaries preferred them The materials used for the construction
even to Shakspeare, affirming that the of their dams are the trunks and Dra.chles
English drama reached its perfection in of small birch, mulberry, willow and popthem. Impartial posterity has reversed lar trees, &c. They begin to cut down
this decision, and adjudged the palm to their timber for building early in that
Shakspeare. They are said to have fre- summer, but their edifices are not con.:
quented taverns and alehouses, to study menced until about the middle or latter
the human character, and to have been part of August, and are not completed
arrested, while disputing in such a place until the beginning of the cold season.
respecting the conclusion of a play. One The. strength of their teeth, and their
wished to have the king in the piece perseverance in this work, may be fairly
assassinated, the other opposed it; and, estimated by the size of the trees they
being overheard, they were apprehended cut down. Doctor Best informs us, that
on suspicion of conspiring the death of he has seen a mulberry tree, eight inches
their sovereign. in diameter, which had been gnawed
BEAUMONT, madame Leprince de; born down by the beaver. We were shown,
at Rouen, 1711; died at Annecy, in Sa- while on the banks of the Little Miami
voy, 1780; lived partly in France, partly river, several stumps of trees, which had
in England, where she devoted her tal- evidently been felled by these animals,
ents to the instruction of youth. A sim- of at least five or six inches in diameter.
pie and easy style, a pleasing moral, well The trees are cut in such a way as to fall
chosen historical passages, and a happy into the water, and then floated towards
imagination, render her writings agreea- the site of the dam or dwellings. Small
ble, although much is too artificial, and shrubs, &c., cut at a distance, they drag
the theological views are no longer of with their teeth to the stream, and. then
value. She has written a great many launch and tow them to the place of deromances and works for children. Her posit. At a short distance above a beaver
clagazin des Enfans was formerly the dam. the number of trees which have
manual of all governantes and French been cut down appears truly surprising,
boarding-schools. and the regularity of the stumps might
BEAUTY. (See Philosophy.) lead persons, unacquainted with the habits
BEAVER (castor, L.); a genus of clavic- of the animal, to believe that the clearing
ulated, mammiferous quadrupeds, of the was the result of human industry.-The
order glires, L., rodentia, C., or gnawers. figure of the dam varies according to cir-Having drawn up, -with great care, the cumstances. Should the current be very
natural history of this species in another gentle, the dam is carried nearly straight
work (American Natural History, vol. ii., across; but when the stream is swift, it
p. 21), we shall avail ourselves of some is uniformly made with a considerable
of the most interesting statements, and curve, having the convex part opposed to
refer the reader thereto for more ample the current. Along with the trunks anrd
details, as well as for the fabulous history branches of trees they intermingle mud
of the animal.-It is only in a state of and stones, to give greater security: and,
nature that the beaver displays any of when dams have been long undisturbed
those singular modes of acting, which and frequently repaired, they acquire
have so long rendered the species cele- great solidity, and their power of resistbrated. These may be summed up in a ing the pressure of water, ice, &c., is
statement of the manner in which they greatly increased by the willow and birch
secure a depth of water that cannot be occasionally taking root, and eventually
fiozen to the bottom, and their mode of growing up into something like a regular
constructing the huts in which they pass hedge. The materials used in constructthe winter. They are not particular as to ing the dams are secured solely by the
the site which they select for the establish- resting of the branches, &c. against the
ment of their dwellings, but if it is in a bottom, and the subsequent accumulation
lake or pond, where a dam is not re- of mud and stones by the force of the
quired, they are careful to build where stream, or by the industry of the beavers.
the water is sufficiently deep. In stand- -The dwellings of the beavers ane form
ming waters, however, they have not the ed of the same materials as their dams,
advantage afforded by a current for the are very rude, and adapted in size to the
transportation of their supplies of wood, number of their inhabitants: seldom more