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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the tree and bore them to the nest. This 

 work was not given to the smaller castes. 

 The leaves principally gathered were those 

 of the live-oak. The ants seemed to pre- 

 fer trees with a smooth leaf, were severe 

 upon grapes, peaches, the China tree, and 

 radishes, took many other garden vegetables 

 and plants, and loved sugar, grain, and to- 

 bacco. The interior of the formicary, as 

 carefully examined by Mr. McCook, seemed 

 to consist of an irregular arrangement of 

 caverns of various sizes, communicating 

 with the surface and with each other by 

 tubular galleries. Within the chambers 

 were masses of very light, delicate leaf 

 paper, wrought into a honeycomb-like fabric, 

 hemispherical, columnar, or hanging, com- 

 posed of cells of various sizes, generally 

 hexagonal in shape, the material of which 

 crumbled under even delicate handling. 

 Large numbers of ants, chiefly of the 

 smaller castes, were found in these cells. 

 Ten distinct castes or sizes of ants were 

 measured, the largest being seven eighths 

 and the smallest one sixteenth of an inch 

 long. Several holes in the vicinity of 

 Austin were visited, out of which nests of 

 ants had been dug. They were nearly as 

 large as a cellar for a small house, one 

 measuring twelve feet in diameter and fif- 

 teen feet deep, and the main cavity being as 

 large as a flour-barrel. 



The Aborigines of Botel Tobago. Dr. 

 Charles A. Siegfried, of the United States 

 Navy, in a letter which has been read be- 

 fore the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, 

 describes a visit he made in December, 1878, 

 to an island called Botel Tobago, about 

 eighty miles east of the south cape of For- 

 mosa. He found there a race of aborigines, 

 supposed to be from Malay stock, who knew 

 nothing of money, rum, or tobacco, but who 

 gave goats and pigs for tin pots and brass 

 buttons, and would hang around the ship all 

 day in their canoes, waiting for a chance to 

 dive for something thrown overboard. They 

 wore clouts only, and lived mainly on taro 

 and yams, though they had also pigs, goats, 

 chickens, fish, and cocoanuts. Their thatch 

 houses were low, with overhanging roofs, 

 and surrounded by stone walls strongly 

 made of laid stone to protect them from 

 monsoons. They were peaceful and timid, 



did not mark the body or deform the face 

 or teeth, and seemed happy enough in their 

 condition, and fairly healthy. They wore 

 their hair naturally, the men partly clipping 

 theirs, and adorned their necks with the 

 beards of goats and small shells. They had 

 axes, spears, and knives, but all of common 

 iron, and their axe was inserted in the han- 

 dle, instead of the handle being inserted in 

 the axe, as with us. Their canoes were 

 beautiful, made without nails, and usually 

 ornamented with geometrical lines. 



Asphalte and Amber in the Mnd of Sew 

 Jersey. The " Proceedings "' of the Acade- 

 my of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia con- 

 tain a description of a mass of asphaltum, 

 weighing about a hundred pounds, which 

 was found near Vincenttown, New Jersey, in 

 the ash-mud, a layer above the green-sand 

 proper, about sixteen feet below the surface. 

 It is the first specimen of this peculiar kind 

 of hydrocarbon that is known to have been 

 observed in New Jersey. . It is very brittle, 

 black, with a resinous luster, uneven frac- 

 ture, inclined to conchoidal, melts easily, and 

 burns with a yellow, smoky flame, leaving 

 a voluminous coal and but little ash. It is 

 soluble in chloroform and oil of turpen- 

 tine, in ether with difficulty; insoluble in 

 alcohol, water, and solution of caustic po- 

 tassa. Oil of vitriol dissolves it into a 

 black liquor, of which a part is retained in 

 solution in water, a part subsides as a dark- 

 colored powder. Nitric acid reacts upon it 

 at an elevated temperature, forming with 

 it soluble products of oxidation. Near the 

 pit from which the asphaltum was obtained, 

 a specimen was found of a yellow mineral 

 resin, which occurs frequently, but not regu- 

 larly, in the mud of the cretaceous forma- 

 tion. It is usually called amber, or suc- 

 cinite, but differs from the typical amber 

 of the Baltic in being lighter than water, 

 fusing into a very fluid, mobile liquid, and 

 in having a less strong cohesion, qualities 

 which indicate its analogy to the variety of 

 succinite called krantzite. It burns easily, 

 with a yellowish, strongly smoking flame, 

 leaving but little coal ; it may be vaporized 

 into a gray cloud of strongly penetrating odor, 

 which condenses into an oily liquid, and some 

 crystals. It is freely soluble in chloroform, 

 bisulphide of carbon, and oil of turpentine, 



