Eighteenth Annual meeting. 27 



by fresh additions of syrup was continued until the crystals presented the diverse 

 forms, from solid-looking truncated cubes to long, slender prisms which characterize 

 cane sugar. But now the microscope was no longer needed, and the growth was so 

 rapid that each successive addition of syrup seemed to produce an appreciable en- 

 largement of the crystals. 



NOTE ON A HABIT OF THE RED ANTS. 



BY ROBERT HAY, JUNCTION CITY. 



Two years ago Professor Snow and Mr. Savage directed the attention of the 

 Academy to the fact that the red ant of the plains covered his large hills with glit- 

 tering fragments of quartz, feldspar, and other bright minerals. Glass beads were 

 also mentioned as occurring, and a general conclusion was arrived at that this bright 

 material was not brought from underground, but gathered around the hill and used 

 probably with reference either to the reflecting or radiating power of the polished 

 surfaces on the solar heat. Since then the writer has had abundant opportunity of 

 verifying the conclusion that the ants collected the material around and not within 

 their mounds. 



Early in the recent summer the writer saw a paragraph copied in another south- 

 western paper from the Dodge City Timea, in which it was said that the ant-hills in 

 that region indicated the presence of coal beneath the surface, as the red ants brought 

 up fragments of it and placed it on their mounds. In the month of July we found 

 that quite a number of persons at Dodge City had this idea. A talk we had with 

 Editor Klaine (which he published) served to dispel this fond illusion, but it was 

 interesting to observe the fact on which it had rested. In a walk of about seven 

 miles easterly along the railway track from Dodge City, we observed about fifty 

 ant-hills, and about half of them had fragments — bright, shining cubes — of coal 

 among the quartz with which the hills were mostly covered. In Dodge City itself, 

 on the rising ground north and for miles along the wagon road west, we found coal 

 among the coverings of many of the ant-hills. The cause of this was not far to 

 seek. It was very interesting to note that on the railway track a hill would be re- 

 markable for the quantity of coal upon it, while another hill not twenty feet away 

 had not a single black particle on it. Those having the coal were in the ditch close 

 to the track, or on the prairie adjoining not elevated above the track, and there 

 were always pieces of bright Trinidad coal breaking up by weathering, lying near, 

 which had been dropped from some passing train. The hills without coal were upon 

 high banks where such droppings were not available; or if lower, where no droppings 

 of coal had taken place. It was the same wherever we found coal — some house was 

 near where it had been used, or some roadway along which it had been hauled. 



We have noticed further, that the ants will use other material. On the great 

 gravel deposits of Colorado the quartz and feldspar are the prevalent coverings for 

 these hills, but a few miles from Pueblo there are spots where the gravel has all dis- 

 appeared, though it is found again only a few rods off. In some of these spots on 

 cretaceous shale we found the mounds of the red ants without one speck of quartz, 

 but covered entirely with thin, lenticular fragments of hematite, or limonite, from 

 the nodules of that material which some layers of the shale contain in abundance. 

 In places these decomposing nodules give a brown hue to several acres of slope, and 

 ant-hills here are of the same color. In the gypsum hills of Barber county, Kansas, 

 we found ant-hills glistening with fragments of selenite. 



In short, we find the ants are somewhat like ourselves: they roof their houses with 



