7 6 4 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



esting species, the " agricultural ant " [Myr- 

 mica rnolefaciens), was located near a black- 

 smith-shop, which had been in operation five 

 years. During all that period the smiths 

 had built their fires for heating wagon-tires 

 on the pavement or flat mound of these ant3. 

 This occurred, on an average, as often as 

 two or three times a week. Frequently, as 

 many as nine tires a day had been heated 

 upon the mound. After five years of such 

 experience, Dr. Lincecum records that he 

 saw numbers of ants at work clearing out 

 the entrance to their city before the fire, 

 that had just been used for heating tires, 

 was entirely extinguished. They seemed to 

 have learned all about fire, and knew how 

 to work around and among the half-extin- 

 guished coals without injury. In illustration 

 of the third point Mr. McCook writes as fol- 

 lows : 



" Last summer (1876) I discovered a formicary 

 of tna6on-auts, apparently a variety of F. rufa, 

 the fallow-aDt. I placed these ants in an artifi- 

 cial formicarium, which was insnlated in a tub 

 of water. One night the covering by which the 

 formicarium was protected during bad weather 

 was left off, or removed by some meddler. A 

 heavy shower fell early in the evening. In the 

 morning the formicary was flooded ; the ants 

 were dead dead and lying under five inches of 

 water, mixed up with the mortar, which the rain 

 had formed with the soil that composed the gal- 

 leries. I poured out the water, and set the box 

 in the sun with a forlorn hope that some of the 

 ants might revive. At noon I chanced to open a 

 paper box in which I had placed a dead female 

 ant of the genus Myrrnica. It had fallen into the 

 tub. where it had been floating for many hours, 

 apparently drowned. It was now crawling about 

 the box alive. Thereupon I visited my dead fal- 

 low-ants, and found three of them moving about 

 in the slush, endeavoring to extricate themselves. 

 Another was struggling out of the muddy sedi- 

 ment in the jar which formed the lower part of 

 the formicary. In short, the greater part of the 

 drowned ants proved themselves to be veritable 

 Noachians, and survived the flood." 



Poisonous Leguminous Plants. Dr. 



Rothrock, of the Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences of Philadelphia, calls attention to the 

 fact that certain leguminous plants exist- 

 ing in our Southwestern Territories possess 

 poisonous properties. In the vicinity of 

 Fort Gartland, in Southern Colorado, cattle 

 have repeatedly manifested symptoms of 

 poisoning, the cause of which has been 

 found to be the plant Oxylrip'ts lamberti. 

 The effects of eating this plant appear to be 



long enduring, the animal becoming de- 

 mented, and wasting away, as its fondness 

 for the poison increases to something like 

 the opium-habit in man. Dr. Rothrock 

 found at New Camp Grant, Arizona, anoth- 

 er plant (Hosackia purshiand) whose effects 

 are similar. From Sophora speciosa, another 

 poisonous leguminous plant from Texas, 

 Prof. H. C. Wood, Jr., has obtained an al- 

 i kaloid which he names Sophoria, from the 

 l bean ; its effects are not unlike those of the 

 Calabar-bean. The Indians of Texas use 

 the Sophora-bean to induce an intoxica- 

 tion, which lasts from two to three days. 

 Half a bean will, it is said, cause intoxi- 

 cation, and a whole one may be productive 

 of dangerous symptoms. 



The Value of Scientific Weather-Observa- 

 tions. Three daily observations of weather- 

 phenomena are made at eighty-three sta- 

 tions of the Central Pacific and Southern 

 Pacific Railroads and their branches, the 

 area covered by the observations extending 

 through eight degrees of latitude and twelve 

 degrees of longitude. New observing-sta- 

 tions are set up in proportion as a new line 

 of road advances. The records of these 

 stations form the basis of a singularly in- 

 teresting and important paper by Mr. B. B. 

 Redding, which was read at a meeting of the 

 California Academy of Sciences on January 

 21st. In illustration of the financial value 

 of systematic observations of this kind, 

 the author gives two cases where even su- 

 perficial study of the meteorological rec- 

 ords would have demonstrated in advance 

 the inevitable failure of certain enterprises. 

 For instance, in 1869 a large sum of money 

 was expended in covering over some lakes 

 near Summit Station with sheds, under 

 which to cut ice for the San Francisco 

 market. No sheds of sufficient width could 

 be built that could bear the weight of snow 

 falling at that point, and consequently the 

 undertaking ended in disastrous failure. 

 The meteorological records of the railroad 

 companies show that the average rainfall 

 at this point is over five feet I " Nearly all 

 of this falls in the form of snow, and is equal, 

 if the snow that falls did not become com- 

 pact or melt, to a bank of snow each w in- 

 ter of sixty feet in depth ! " A similar in- 

 stance of the value of these records is fur- 



