Chronological History. 



39 



of 1873 was pretty general over a strip of country running 

 from the northern parts of Colorado and southern parts of 

 Wyoming, through Nebraska and Dakota, to the south- 

 western counties of Minnesota, and northwestern counties 

 of Iowa — the injury being most felt in the last two more 

 thickly settled States. The insects poured in upon this 

 country during the summer and laid their eggs in all the 

 more eastern portions reached. The cry of distress that 

 went up from the afflicted people of Minnesota in the fall 

 of that year is still fresh in mind, and the pioneers of 

 "Western Iowa, in addition to the locust devastations, suf- 

 fered severe damage from a terrific tornado. During the 

 same year great ravages were also committed by locusts 

 in Southern California. 



THE INVASION OF 1874. 



We now come to the locust visitation of 1874, which 

 will long be remembered as more disastrous, and as caus- 

 ing more distress and destitution than any of its prede- 

 cessors. The calamity was national in its character, and 

 the suffering in the ravaged districts would have been 

 great, and famine and death the consequence, had it not 

 been for the sympathy of the whole country and the ener- 

 getic measures taken to relieve the afflicted people — a sym- 

 pathy begetting a generosity which proved equal to the 

 occasion, as it did in the case of the great Chicago fire, 

 and which will ever redound to the glory of our free Re- 

 public j and of our Union. 



From a very large number of data, culled from every 

 available source, the accompanying map (Plate II) has 

 been prepared, which will at a glance illustrate the country 

 liable to be overrun by this Rocky Mountain scourge, and 

 more especially the territory in the United States east of the 

 mountains, visited in 1874. This last will be seen to em- 



