DIGEST OF STATE EEPOETS. 375 



tive size and location, railroads, railroad and public lands, to\Yns, school- 

 houses, water-powers, &c. These maps, })roduced at j^^reat cost, are 

 liltely to prove serviceable, among other things, in inducing- iumiigra- 



tiOD. 



A brief synopsis of the transactions of the Board in 1875 is followed 

 by reports and papers on subjects of interest to the people of this young 

 and rapidly-growing State. Among these are a sketcli of the history ot 

 Kansas, including its tribulations and its triumphs ; a sketch of its 

 agriculture, abundantly illustrated with diagrams ; separate papers on 

 the geology, the rivers, the birds, the fishes, and the railroads of Kan- 

 sas ; the history and present condition of its public-school system ; 

 historical sketches of the State institutions for deaf mutes, for the blind, 

 and for the insane, and of the State penitentiary ; a condensed history 

 of the name, settlement, population, industries, and products of each 

 settled county ; a Stflte census, including very complete and well-digested 

 statistics of population, occupations ,and industries, public institutions, 

 farm-animals and their products, field-crops, agricultural organizations, 

 &c. ; State laws to promote timber-culture ; also the herd- law and fence- 

 laws. The volume concludes with an extended report of transactions 

 at the eighth annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science. This 

 includes brief papers on ozone in Kansas atmosphere ; the Nebraska 

 hot bluff; Kansas chalk ; analyses of Kansas soils and of Kansas salt ; 

 - calamites ; Kansas mammalia; the habits of certain larvae; the cot- 

 tonwood-leaf beetle ; the Eocky Mountain locust; larva and chrysalis of 

 the sage- sphinx, and the Lepidoptera of Eastern Kansas. 



Prof. W. K. Kedzie, chemist to the board, gives a brief account of his 

 trip to Europe and his investigations into the workings and operations 

 of the agricultural stations he visited. 



Mr. Alfred Gray, secretary to the board, gives a detailed history of the 

 damages sustained by the grasshopper invasion and the efforts made for 

 the relief of the sufferers. From his statement it appears that the Kan- 

 sas central relief committee received and disbursed during the period of 

 its operations the sum (in cash) of $73,803.47 ; supplies, 265 car-loads, 

 and 11,049 packages. The average value of a cur-load was estimated 

 at $400, and of packages $5, which gives $161,245 as the aggregate 

 value of contributed supplies received and distributed by the committee. 

 This added to the cash receipts gives a total as disbursed by the com- 

 mittee of $235,108.47. 



Mr. Gray quotes the following from the report for 1875 of Professor 

 Eiley, State entomologist of Mssouri : 



The life-history of this insect is essentially the same as that of the more common locusts 

 that are ■with us every year. The female, when about to lay her eggs, forces a hole in 

 the ground by means of the two jjairs of horny valves which open and shut a^. the tip 

 of her abdomen, and which, from their peculiar structure, are admirably iitied for the 

 purpose. With the valves closed she pushes the tips in the ground, and by & series of 

 muscular efforts aud the continued opening and shutting of the valves she drills a hole, 

 until, in a few minutes, (the time varying with the nature of the soil,) the whole ab- 

 domen is buried, the tips reaching an inch or moi-e below the surface by means of great 

 distension. Now, with hind Ifgs hoisted straight above the back, and the shauks'hug- 

 ging more or less closely the thighs, she commences ovipositing, the eggs beiug voided 

 iu a pale, glistening, and glutinous fluid, which holds them together aud binds them 

 iuto a long, cylindrical pod, covered with particles of earth which adhere to it. When 

 fresh the whole mass is soft aud moist, but it soon acquires a firmer consistency. It is 

 often as long as the abdomen, and lies in a curved or slanting ijosition. It is never 

 placed nuirh more than an inch below the surface, excejit wlien some vegetable root 

 has been followed down and devoured and the insect leaves her eggs before emerging. 

 In this way the mass is sometimes placed a foot below the surface. 



Thf eggs which composed this mass are laid side by side to the number of from 

 thirty to one hundred, according to size of mass. They are 0.15 to 0.20 inch, one-fouirth 



