ginia. The value of the work can be judged by Jefferson's statements under Query 7 in his Notes on Virginia:

"Journals of observations on the quantity of rain and degree of heat being lengthy, confused, and too minute to produce general and distinct ideas, I have taken five years' observations, to wit from 1772 to 1777, made in Williamsburg and its neighborhood, have reduced them to an average for every month in the year, and stated those averages in the following table, adding an analytical view of the winds for the same period."

Then follows quite a long table of average temperatures and wind directions of great interest to the meteorologist. Thinking that some noteworthy differences might exist between the northeast and northwest winds at the two stations, a second table was constructed by reducing observations at the two places for nine months to the "four points perpendicular to and parallel to the coast. It may be seen that the southwest wind prevails equally at both places, that the northeast is next to this the principal wind toward the seacoast, and the northwest is the predominant wind toward the mountains; . . . the northeast wind is loaded with vapor insomuch that the salt-makers have found that their crystals would not shoot while that blows; it brings a distressing chill, and is heavy and oppressive to the spirits; the northwest is dry, cooling, elastic, and animating."

Even our valuable Crop Bulletin was foreshadowed by these early workers. We find it recorded that "white frosts are frequent when the thermometer is at 47° and have killed young plants of Indian corn at 48°, and have even been known at 54°. Black frost and even ice have been produced at 381°."

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Finally, that much-discussed matter, change in climate, did not escape their notice. "A change in climate," they claim, “ is taking place very sensibly." This was written in 1781. "Both heats and colds are becoming much more moderate within memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie below the mountains more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week."

And then follows a very evident reference to that even then well-known personage, the oldest inhabitant:

"The snows are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me that the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year."

From snows and winds these meteorologists turned their attention to rainbows, and from rainbows to water vapor and steam. Curiously enough, it is in a letter to Jefferson, mostly about the rainbow, that Madison gives the latest information. about a boat to be propelled by steam and which "General W

and others have seen and approved, and is much discussed by the well-informed; but which I must say I feel skeptical about."

What a contrast! The steam navigation of that date and today; from the first rude paddles of the river steamboat to the triple screws of the transatlantic greyhounds! One naturally asks, "Are we to-day on the verge of a still greater navigation, that of the air?" No modern Madison may yet write that some General Whas seen and approved, but the signs of its advent are multiplying so rapidly that he would not say, "I feel skeptical about it." If these two alert minds were again on earth, we can fancy Jefferson, always so keenly alive to practical application of knowledge, discussing the outlook as follows:

The meteorologists are exultant. In that latest instrument of the electrical engineer, the telautograph, they see the chance for an advance equal to that made when the first synoptic weather map was drawn. Simultaneity of observation can be improved upon. Instead of sending the observations in cipher twice or thrice per day, continuous records in installments can be sent. But even more than this, the map can be drawn in many places at once. The map is issued daily at a score of cities in the United States. A map is also issued daily at Brussels, Paris, London, Zurich, Hamburg, Rome, Munich, Vienna, Chemnitz, Madrid, Algiers, St. Petersburg, Simla, Brisbane, Sydney, Tokio, and Cape Town. Now one step further. Shall there ever be one great central weather office and one great daily weather map for the whole world, drawn not in one but a hundred cities at the same moment? Does this seem visionary? It is vastly less so than the actual system in operation for the past twenty years would have seemed to the two colonial gentlemen who more than a century ago read their barometers and thermometers simultaneously and speculated on the possibility of propulsion by steam.

VIEWING exact delineation by trigonometrical measurement as the crowning work of geography, Mr. Clements R. Markham pointed out, in a recent lecture, that the exact mapping of the land surface of the globe is still very incomplete, while the delineation of the bed of the ocean has hardly begun. The greatest unknown areas lie in the polar regions Even in Europe there remains scope for detailed survey in many countries. In Africa the unexplored has been diminishing very rapidly, but considerable areas are still virgin. Asia has much new ground to break into. The valleys of Hadramant in Arabia are almost as little known as the antarctic regions. Lhassa has been unvisited by Englishmen for generations, and a vast region in northwestern Thibet is still a blank on our maps. Nepaul is little known; Kafiristan is absolutely secluded from the European. The maze of mountain ranges and river valleys east of the Himalayas bas yet to be unraveled, and the whole interior of Indo China is full of opportunities for research. Korea is yet far from being fully known. The great Malay Archipelago must receive more attention.

IN

HOMES OF SOCIAL INSECTS.*

By L. N. BADENOCH.

N no branch of insect work are more admirable means employed to bring about the desired ends, or is greater diversity of method found, than in that of insect architecture. The beauty of the buildings in many cases is incomparable, and generally speaking the abodes attain a magnitude colossal as compared with that of their creators. It may be exception will be taken to the use of the word architecture to designate this portion of the insect economy, and perhaps the term can hardly be applied in fairness to homes which are mere tunnels and galleries bored in the earth or in wood. But who would deny it to the exquisite pensile nests of the English wasps, or those of many a foreign relative, to the geometric precision exhibited within the hive of the honey bee, or to the edifices of some ants, as will be presently discovered?

Among the communities which combine their operations, there are those of which the object is simply the protection of the individuals composing them. To these societies belong the caterpillars of certain species of moths. The homes formed by these larvæ, though they are not elaborate, are interesting in several minute circumstances. But they fall short in every respect of the attractive nests fabricated by companies of insects in their perfect state, in view not only of self-preservation, but of the nurture and education of their young as well.

The nests of an extraordinary tree ant, Ecophylla smaragdina, are cunningly wrought with leaves, united together with web (see Fig. 1). One was observed in New South Wales in the expedition under Captain Cook. The leaves utilized were as broad as one's hand, and were bent and glued to each other at their tips. How the insects manage to bring the leaves into the required position was never ascertained, but thousands were seen uniting their strength to hold them down, while other busy multitudes were employed within in applying the gluten that was to prevent them returning back. The observers, to satisfy themselves that the foliage was indeed incurvated and held in this form by the efforts of the ants, disturbed the builders at their work, and as soon as they were driven away the leaves sprang up, with a force much greater than it would have been deemed possible for such laborers to overcome by any combination of strength. The more compact and elegant dwelling of E. vires

* Reprinted, with the kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., from the author's popular work, Romance of the Insect World.

cens is made of leaves, cut and masticated until they become a coarse pulp. Its diameter is about six inches; it is suspended among thickest foliage, and sustained not only by the branches on which it hangs, but by the leaves, which are worked into the composition, and in many parts project from its outer wall. It may be at once distinguished from the nest of Crematogaster by its smoothness and regularity of surface. A species of this genus was discovered in Africa by Foxcroft, who observed that whenever the ants were molested, they rushed out of their house

FIG. 1.-NEST OF A TREE ANT (ECOPHYLLA SMARAGDINA) FROM INDIA.

in such numbers that their pattering upon the papery covering deluded him into thinking rain was falling on the leaves above.

In the forests of Cayenne, the nests of Formica bispinosa are remarkably like a sponge or an overgrown fungus. The down or cottony matter enveloping the seeds in the pods of the Bombax ceiba is used for their construction, vegetable fibers that are too short to convert into fabrics, but which the ants contrive to felt and weave into a compact and uniform mass, so dexterously that all trace of the individuality of the threads is lost. The material much resembles amadou, and like that substance is valuable for stopping violent discharges of blood. In size the nests generally have a diameter of eight or nine inches. The ant itself is little and dark, and noted for two long, sharp spines on its thorax, one on either side; hence its scientific name of bispinosa, from the Latin, meaning two-spined. Popularly it has been called the fungus ant.

The true social wasps, which are arranged in one large family, the Vespida, form communities whose architectural labors will not suffer on comparison even with those of the inhabitants of the beehive. In fact, for daintiness and delicacy the nests of many of the Vespida constitute the most beautiful examples of insect architecture.

Not the least extraordinary of the wasps are the Icarias, a genus that extends through most of the warmer regions of the

FIG. 2.-NEST OF ICARIA VARIEGATA.

world, specimens having

to

been taken in Africa, India, China, and Australia, and in many parts of the Asiatic Archipelago. Like the Polistes, their nests are attached leaves, stalks, or branches by a single footstalk, composed of the same papery material as the cells. Though slender, it is hard, tough, and solid, and the strength with which it is fastened to the tree or plant is surprising, enabling it to uphold considerable weight. At the end of the petiole usually a single cell, its mouth directed downward, is fixed; the rest of the nest consists of a double series of lateral cells until the group is complete. Those nearest to the footstalk are the largest and

most perfect, since they are finished first; toward the other extremity the cells gradually diminish in size, and at that point they are only just begun. As a whole they are well-defined hexagons; their color is often a rather dark yellowish brown, preventing them from being conspicuous in spite of their curious projection. The cell masses are small, so that the societies must be restricted. Possibly each group is the work of a single female, who confines herself to raising her own progeny which escape as soon as they are hatched. The nests are frequently numerous in the same spot, and each society may set up a number of separate homes in the vicinity of one another. Per