536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



prepared by the "Western farmers for use upon the Atlantic and Pacific 

 fishing-grounds. A very important chemical substance used in the 

 arts may be extracted from locusts by the action of sulphuric acid. 

 This is formic acid, for which many applications have been found in 

 therapeutics and in the laboratory. By collecting, killing, and bury- 

 ing them in trenches, or in compost-heaps, these insects might be 

 utilized as fertilizing agetits, or they might be collected in large quan- 

 tities, dried, and sent East in bales as food for poultry. 



Although the writer does not profess to be an advocate of ento- 

 mophagy, nor does he intend to become an acridophagist himself, 

 unless absolutely necessary, yet he believes, with Professor Riley, that, 

 when the devastations of the Rocky Mountain locusts lay waste our 

 Western domain, the inhabitants of these regions need not die for 

 want of food so long as a supply of locusts exists. Persons should 

 not allow prejudice and squeamishness to stand in the way of self- 

 preservation. 



-+*+- 



A NATURAL SEA-WALL. 



By LOUIS BELL. 



ALONG the New Hampshire sea-coast, in the towns of Rye and 

 North Hampton, stretches a curious and massive formation, 

 which at first sight appears as if built at enormous expenditure of time 

 and labor. On closer examination, however, it proves to be only one 

 of Ocean's eccentric freaks, executed in this case with almost human 

 intelligence and care. 



A sea-wall, compactly formed of water-worn pebbles of all sizes, 

 shapes, and materials, runs along the beach for about six miles, here 

 and there broken by rocky points and little inlets, somewhat modified 

 by its situation, but preserving with astonishing regularity several re- 

 markable features. In places it is so high and wide that one can hardly 

 believe it anything but a carefully constructed dike, designed to 

 shelter the adjoining fields. Along part of its extent, where it sepa- 

 rates the ocean from an extensive salt-marsh, it is utilized by the 

 farmers of the neighborhood for a cart-road. Along another stretch, 

 a plank-walk surmounts it for half a mile. 



It first appears in the form of a low wall composed of three ter- 

 races, near Little Boar's Head, in the town of North Hampton, thirty 

 rods south of the slight projection known on the charts as Fox Hill 

 Point. This portion of the wall is only about twenty rods in length, 

 and seems much like a stone facing to the steep beach ward slope. Some 

 forty rods north of the point it reappears, this time in the form of a 

 large and compact dike, and extends along the water-line in a crescent 

 form for at least fifty rods, terminating at a small cove directly east of 



