USE OF ACIDS AXD CREOSOTE. 



123 





well as out at the top of the cork, where it was bent at a 

 right angle. One of the tubes in each bottle was drawn 

 down to a point with a small aperture, 

 and served as a discharge pipe. The 

 other was connected with a rubber tube 

 having a mouth-piece of glass. One 

 of the bottles held a mixture of phenol 

 ©r carbolic acid and turpentine (fifty 

 per cent, of each) ; the other, chemi- 

 cally pure nitric acid. By blowing into 

 the mouth-piece of the bottle containing 

 the carbolic acid mixture, a jet of this 

 acid was thrown upon the egg-mass. 

 This carbolic acid at once penetrated 

 the cluster and in all probability de- 

 stroyed the life of the eggs. To render t,. o a <^ 



•^ &t5 Fig. 2. Acid apparatus. 



the destruction of all the eggs an abso- 

 lute certainty, a jet of nitric acid from the other bottle was 

 then thrown in the same manner upon the mass. While 

 nitric acid of itself will not penetrate the egg-clusters, it is 

 alone sufficient to kill the eggs if they are divested of their 

 hairy covering and immersed in it. The two acids in combi- 

 nation reacted and produced an extreme heat and corrosion, 

 and a few applications entirely destroyed the egg-cluster. 



While this apparatus was being used in the field, experi- 

 ments were made to find some simpler method of destroying 

 the eggs. Although the acids Avere efiective, they were 

 expensive and there was some danger of injuring the men 

 using them. Clothes, ropes, tools and apparatus were also 

 injured by the fumes of acids which were kept with them in 

 the tool boxes. The experiments finally resulted in the choice 

 for use in the field of a cheap creosote oil manufactured by 

 the Carolina Oil and Creosote Company, Wilmington, N. C. 

 This oil was recommended for trial by Prof. N. S. Shaler. 

 It requires neither preparation nor complex apparatus, but 

 can be drawn from the barrel into cans and applied with a 

 brush. If a cluster is thoroughly soaked with this liquid, it 

 penetrates and kills all the eggs, and is very efiective except 

 in the coldest weather, when it may sometimes thicken. It 

 may then be made more penetrative by being mixed with 



