130 
Psyche 
[December 
these ant mounds were less numerous but individually larger. 
That period was probably about 1850. This is in harmony with 
the existence in 1905 of a few very large circular regions in- 
dicating old mounds long since washed away. 
The region in which these ant mounds of Timonium occur 
is a large tract of deserted land of some 600 acres, roughly a mile 
on each side, bounded on the West by the York turnpike, on 
the East by a road leading out of the old Dulaney Valley and 
Sweet Air Turnpike, on the North by the “cinder” road and on 
the South by the open farming country of Long Quarter. This 
region is largely given up to young woods and used as wood lots, 
not pastured nor fenced for the most part, having been formerly 
used as source of bog-iron ore for the Ashland Iron Ore Co. of 
Ashland, Md. which left various large and small excavations 
abandoned at different dates down to 1888 when the last work 
was done. It is represented by diagram one, which shows the 
positions of the ant mounds, but with the size exaggerated. 
The land slopes gently from elevation of 400 feet in the 
northwest to elevations of 300 toward the southeast and two 
springs give rise to a little run which flows toward the Gunpowder. 
The soil is poor with gravel and at the south a small outcrop 
of crystalline limestone with two large excavations. The geo- 
logical formation is said to be Potomac or lower Cretaceous. 
A reconnaissance of this area made in December 1905 showed 
that the ant mounds were located in two regions, a larger “town” 
near the York road [above in the diagram] and a smaller “village” 
to the south [to the right and below in the diagram] separated 
from the larger settlement by a third of a mile of woods in which 
however a few faint indications of the former existence of large 
mounds suggested that at one time the two settlements might 
have been connected. Ants carried in the following summer 
from the mounds of the larger to the mounds of the smaller set- 
tlement did not seem to excite hostile responses but were im- 
mediately allowed to run into the mounds without being fought 
by the inhabitants. Ants taken April 14, 1906 from the “village” 
and put in a mound in “town” did not start up a fight, but the 
queens were seized and dragged along into holes in the strange 
mound. This may be taken as some indication that the ants in 
