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When the dam is finished, the water spreads back, and there is a beautiful woodland lake. Many of the trees which were in the valley will now be standing in the water. This causes them to rot, so that they gradually decay and fall into the lake. It was in this way that the beaver did most of his land-clearing for the white man. He caused a small valley to become flooded by his dam; this rotted the timber, causing it to die; and thus the land was cleared. Then the spring freshets brought down rich mud and plastered it all lover the bottom of the lake.
水壩建好后，水就會回流，形成一個美麗的森林湖泊。從前山谷里的許多樹現在都要倒在水里了。這使它們腐爛，逐漸腐爛，掉進湖里。海貍就是用這種方法為白人清地的。他的水壩造成了一個小村莊遭遇洪水；這使木材腐爛，導致死亡；這樣地就潔凈了。然后春天的洪水帶來了豐富的泥，并把泥貼滿了湖底。
When the white man came, he trapped and killed the beaver and broke down his dam, causing the water to flow out. Behold, there was his farm all cleared free of timber and enriched by the mud which had been collecting for many years.
白人來了，他困住并殺死了海貍，還破壞了海貍的水壩，導致水流出來。看，那里是他的農場，所有的樹木都被伐光了，多年來一直積滿了泥土。
When the beaver has finished his dam and it is filled with water, there is usually an island in the woodland lake which he has formed; it is upon such an island that he builds his house. It is cone-shaped and made with a skeleton of sticks or rafters, but the chief building materials used by the beaver are sod and mud. These are plastered very skillfully on the framework. When the house is finished, the little builder lays in his supply of winter food. He goes upstream and cuts many small trees.
當海貍建好他的水壩，水壩充滿了水，通常在他所建的林地湖上有一個島；他就是在這樣一個島上蓋房子的。它是錐形的，由木棍或椽子做成的骨架，但是海貍使用的主要建筑材料是草皮和泥土。這些被巧妙地涂在框架上。房子建好后，小建筑工人儲備了過冬的食物。并逆流而上砍了許多小樹。
