Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/789

Rh enough for all practical purposes, and, could the officers be got to coöperate in carrying out its provisions, the result would undoubtedly be a material lessening of disease and mortality in the army. But, as now managed, both disease and mortality are largely in excess of what they should be. From a table showing the ratio per thousand of mortality in the United States Army as compared with the mortality of males between twenty and forty years of age in civil life, it appears that the death-rate from disease among the soldiers is from twice to three times as great per thousand as among civilians. The author ascribes this partly to the character of the food, which is often deficient in fresh vegetables, but mainly to the habitations in which the soldiers are obliged to live. In many instances these are without provision for ventilation, are often much overcrowded, and are rarely furnished with adequate appliances for bathing and the maintenance of cleanliness of person. In the matters of clothing and hospital service the author considers the troops generally well provided for. The bulk of the report is taken up with descriptions of military posts, furnished by different members of the army medical corps.

noxious insects considered in this volume are the Colorado potato-beetle, canker-worm, army-worm, Rocky Mountain locust, and the grape phylloxera. One innoxious insect, the yucca-borer, is treated of. The loss sustained in the State of Missouri in 1875 from injury done to grains alone by the Rocky Mountain locust is estimated by Prof. Riley at $15,000,000. Accordingly, we are not surprised that the greater part of the annual report should be devoted to this insect. Several interesting questions regarding the natural history of the locust are discussed, such as its transformations, the habits of the unfledged locusts, the directions in which the young locusts travel, etc. It has been asserted that young locusts are led in their marches by "kings" or "queens," but this Prof. Riley declares to be an error. "Certain large locusts," he writes, "belonging to the genera Acridinia and Œdipus hibernate in the full-grown, winged state, and not in the egg-state, like the Rocky Mountain species always with us; their presence was simply more manifest last spring, when the face or the earth was bare. Hopping with the others, or falling into ditches with them, they gave rise to this false notion, and it is an interesting fact, as showing how the same circumstances at times give rise to similar erroneous ideas in widely-separate parts of the world, that the same idea prevails in parts of Europe and Asia."

has studied, in five different localities, the evidences proving the continued action of the lateral pressure occasioned by the earth's contraction. His general conclusions are 1.—That the rock at these localities has been brought into a compressed condition by a powerful lateral pressure, acting only in a northerly and southerly direction; and, 2. That, when opportunity is presented, the compressed rock expands with great energy.

finds the variation in size, with latitude, to be surprisingly great in wolves and foxes, amounting in some species to twenty-five per cent, of the average size of the species, while in other species of the Feræ it is almost nil. Contrary to the general impression, the variation in size among representatives of the same species is not always a decrease with the decrease of the latitude of the locality, but is in some cases exactly the reverse.

State Horticultural Society of Kansas appears to be a very industrious and efficient body. Two meetings were held during the year 1875, and the proceedings