PKOCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 827 



trip might carry on his person the material for many hundred 

 dishes of oyster soup without inconvenience. The secret of tho 

 cheapness of this preparation is that the inventor economizes what 

 has been regarded as a waste material, for it is well known that 

 the large and iSne oysters sent westward in cans must first be 

 separated from their natural juice, which, until now has been 

 thrown away. The low price at which the extract can be sold, 

 and its portaliility, w^ill make it an article of staple demand, at 

 points distant from the seaboard, among the million who long for 

 sea-flavor. 



The Ant. 



This industrious insect is remarkable for its muscular strengfth. 

 It often bears a burden ten or twelve times heavier than its own 

 weight. As ants are dormant at a temperature a little below the 

 freezing-point — about 27° Fah. — their ravages in our climate are 

 not to be dreaded, yet in cities where buildings are kept constantly 

 warm during the cold months they are often very numerous. In 

 New York the progress of a small species of ant, first noticed in 

 the lower part of the city, has been regular toward the north, but 

 hardly keeping pace with the compact extension of buildings. 

 The ant, though a scavenger, is very troublesome in the culinary 

 department. It is carniverous, and does not feed on corn and 

 other cereals as many suppose, but it is very fond of sugar and 

 saccharine juice; for this reason it sometimes attacks ripe fruit. 

 Ants become formidable in warm climates where they are able to 

 continue their operations without interruption from cold through- 

 out the entire year. In tropical regions, particularly in Africa, 

 the habitations erected by ants are superior in structure to the 

 huts of the native. According to M. Malonet, ant structures in 

 the forests of Guiana attain to the height of fifteen and even twenty 

 ,feet; when viewed from a distance on these widely extended savan- 

 nas, they resemble the rude huts of the savages, but they contain 

 a race more ferocious than the savage or the tiger himself, and 

 cannot be approached by man without the utmost danger of being 

 devoured. When new settlers, who aro clearing the country, 

 meet with any of these in their progress, they must desist their 

 task and even abandon the neighborhood, unless they can speedily 

 destroy the enemy in the very heart of the citadel which protects 

 him, and from which he is able to pour an overwnelming number 

 of combatants. The only method of accomplishing this is to dig 

 a trench all round the ant-hills, and after having filled them with 



