Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/725

 MOLE CRICKET firmed in his peerage ; but lie had little influ- ence in the government. In May, 1817, he became minister of marine in the cabinet of the duke de Richelieu. Resigning in December, 1818, he remained out of office until the acces- sion of Louis Philippe, who appointed him minister of foreign affairs, Aug. 11, 1830. The ministry, consisting of a coalition of parties, held together less than three months ; but in September, 1836, Mole became again minister of foreign affairs and premier. He negotiated the marriage of the duke of Orleans, and pro- cured an amnesty for political offenders ; but after twice dissolving the chambers, he was forced to resign in March, 1839. In the fol- ing year he was chosen a member of the French academy. During the revolution of 1848 he withdrew from public affairs, but without soli- citation was chosen to represent the depart- ment of Gironde in the constituent assembly, where he placed himself among the leaders of the right. He was a member of the com- mittee which framed the law of 1850 against universal suffrage, and was one of those who protested at the mairie of the 10th arrondisse- ment against the coup d'etat of Dec. 2, 1851. The close of his life was passed at his ances- tral chateau of Champlatreux. He was one of the stanchest supporters of the Roman Cath- olic church in France. MOLE CRICKET, a jumping orthopterous in- sect, of the genus gryllotalpa (Latr.), meaning cricket mole. The European mole cricket (#. vulgaru, Latr.) has a most extraordinary and ugly form ; it is nearly 2 in. long and -J- of an inch wide, and of a dark brown color; the head, retractile within the prothorax, has two long and strong antennae in front of its black reticulated eyes; the thorax is elevated and crab-like, covered with a velvety down; the wings, which when expanded are broad and triangular, when folded extend like two rib- bons over the abdomen ; the abdomen, soft and with nine or ten segments, has two filaments at the end as long as the antennas; the fore legs are short, broad, and strong, the shanks being very wide, flat, and three-sided, with four finger-like projections on the lower side, giving very much the appearance and the digging powers of the hands of the mole, whence the generic name. It lays 200 or 300 eggs in June in a gourd-shaped hollow in the earth, about 2 in. long, having a winding communication with the surface ; the young are hatched in five or six weeks, and resemble black ants, not arriving at maturity till the third year ; both young and old commit great ravages by feeding on the tender roots of grass, culinary vegetables, and flowers ; they also eat insects and worms, and themselves furnish food for moles, lizards, snakes, and other insectivorous animals. The males emit a pleasing sound at night, at which time they are the most active. Rosel says this insect can push forward on a level surface a weight of 6 Ibs. with its fore feet. They rarely appear on the surface, but their presence may MOLECULE 707 be known by the withered patches in the field and garden, and their retreats detected by the little hills of fresh earth, smaller than those of moles, which they throw up in soft and moist places. Late in autumn they bury themselves deep in the ground, coming again to the surface in the warm days of spring. The surest way to prevent their depredations is to dig up the nests and destroy the eggs ; another way is to Mole Cricket (Gryllotalpa borealis). pour boiling water into their holes. The Amer- ican species (G. lorealis} is about in. long, of a bright bay or fawn color, with the wing covers not half the length of the abdomen, and the tips of the folded wings extending only one third of an inch beyond the covers. The G. didactyla (Latr.), having only two finger-like projections on the fore legs, has proved very destructive to the sugar cane in the West Indies and South America. MOLECULE (Fr. molecule, diminutive of Lat. moles, a mass), a small mass of matter. The word came into use in France in the early part of the last century, and was adopted by Buffon in describing his remarkable theory of the con- stitution of organized beings. Later it was used by Laplace in his Systeme du monde, and also by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, and other chemists, at the period of the French revolution. The writers of this period distinguish between mo- lecules integrantes and molecules constituantes. By their definitions the former were simply small particles differing from a mass of the same substance only in magnitude ; the latter were the more minute particles of the elemen- tary substances, of which the former may be regarded as composed. The molecules constitu- antes corresponded very closely to the atoms of modern chemistry, and by more recent authors the words molecule and atom were frequently used as synonymous. Into the English lan- guage the word molecule does not seem to have been readily received. Although the organic molecules of Buffon are referred to by Paley, the word is not found in Johnson's dictionary, and was not generally used by English writers on chemistry and physics until within a few years. Indeed, in England the influence of Dalton's theory has given such authority to the word atom that it is still frequently used to denote both the true chemical atom and the physical molecule, and it is therefore the more important for us to carefully distinguish be- tween them. The term molecule, as used in the modern schools of physics and chemistry,