of the company engaged in bringing this fertilizer to market are extensive, and located on the Ashley River, about ten miles above Charleston. Their wharf is on a bluff, and is accessible to any vessel which can cross the bar below the city. The land approach is by the Dorchester road. At the close of the year 1868 the export trade in this substance was extensive, the Charleston papers announcing daily the loading of eight to ten vessels on the Ashley River. These vessels are chartered either for Baltimore or more eastern markets, where the crude material is manipulated, and mixed with ammonia salts, to form phosphatic guano, or else merely crushed to form the ground of phosphate of lime. The domestic manipulation of this pulverized phosphate is practiced, to a considerable extent, by the farmers of northern Maryland and the border counties of Pennsylvania. Some mix the phosphate with farm manure, while others buy crude ammonia from the druggist, and mix them together.

Dr. Pratt describes this phosphatic bed as "varying from four to eighteen inches in thickness, sometimes, though rarely, increasing to two or three feet, and in some places thinning out to a few scattering nodules on or near the surface. It consists essentially of indurated, irregularly-rounded nodules, buried in an adhesive and tenacious blue clay and sand; sometimes, however, it exists in continuous beds, or large lumps, or conglomerates of soft chalky consistency, as if it were originally a soft pasty mass of phosphatic mud that has since become semi-consolidated. Associated with these is a most wonderful assortment of animal remains, among which bones of marine animals are so abundant as to have induced Professor L. Agassiz, twenty years ago, to call it the 'fish bed' of the Charleston Basin."

The nodules he describes as tough, irregular in form,water-worn, and rounded, perforated by boring mollusks, though generally only the casts of them remain; under the microscope they exhibit the unmistakable characters of bone, are easily soluble even in dilute acids, free from phosphate of iron and alumina, with a very low percentage of carbonate of lime. From one specimen of a mastodon boue Dr. Pratt states that he obtained 85.62 per cent. of pure bone phosphate, and the nodules contain on an average from 57 to 67 per cent. of bone phosphate.

Professor C. U. Shepard, jr., of Charleston, who, as far back as 1860, appreciated the value of this bed, and urged upon the Agricultural Soci ety of South Carolina the importance of utilizing it, describes, in the paper above referred to, the size of the nodules as being from that of a boy's fist up to a man's head, some of a light color, and easily crushed in the fingers, and yielding the following results. A soft nodular phosphate between the Cooper and the Ashley River:

The phosphate of iron rarely exceeded 5 per cent. and was much less in the light-colored phosphates. Dr. Shepard states that when freshly dug and fractured, the fresh surfaces give off a very strong organic odor, so characteristic as to be made the means of detecting the phos

phates throughout the region of the deposit. This odor is also found in the dry specimens, whether hard or soft; the amount of nitrogenous matter is small, not exceeding 0.5 per cent. of ammonia. Under this bed a phosphatic marl occurs, reaching to the depth of four hundred feet, as ascertained by boring, and containing, according to Professor Shepard, 14 per cent. of phosphate of lime. The nodules lie so close that an acre of the deposit has yielded thirteen hundred tons of nodules, even after rejecting small samples. These, when clean and dry, have brought occasionally as high as fifteen dollars per ton.. Much of the land, between the rivers and overlying the stratum, is covered with dense forest. The phosphate is obtained by digging a trench one or two feet wide, cutting through the phosphatic stratum, and cleaning out the ditch; the laborer then stands in the trench, and with a shovel uncovers the surface clay and sand, laying bare the layer of nodules. Then, with a few blows of the pick, the latter are loosened, and the nodules picked out with the hand and thrown into heaps, which are then drawn on the tramway, in carts, to the washers, or long troughs with horizontal shafts inside, furnished with paddles, and worked with a strong stream of water from a force pump. When the washing is completed, the nodules, free from clay and sand, are delivered out through a vent, and sold on the wharf.

The following analyses of these phosphates, samples of which were forwarded by L. Sangston, esq., president of the Maryland Fertilizing and Manufacturing Company of Baltimore, have been made in this Laboratory, No. 1 representing the nodules, and No. 2 the fossil bone:

The composition of No. 1 shows what alteration it has undergone by the clayey admixture which has crept in, and by the loss of almost all its organic matter. We place here for comparison the composition of recent bone of the ox as given by Fremy, (Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry,) when deprived of its organic matter, which generally is 33 per cent.:

Per cent. of ash...
Phosphate of lime...
Phosphate of magnesia
Carbonate of lime.

3. 17 62.50

2.70

7.90

This includes the ash of the organic matter, or ostein, burned off. It may be observed that, in the fossil bone, the magnesia salt has disappeared, and is replaced by some alkaline salt, introduced by percolation; that the organic matter is almost wholly replaced by the fine clay deposited in its structure; and that the whole mass has been cemented by a solution of carbonate of lime, contained in waters running through the beds under pressure. As regards the amount of bone phosphate, these fossils are as rich as the recent bone, and much richer than Swan Island, Navassa, or Bolivian guano. The nodular bed No. 1

resembles, more nearly than No. 2, the coprolites of England, as analyzed by Herepath, but gives much less lime carbonate. An analysis of fossil bone, from the greensand beds of Virginia, is here appended:

The bones were found in the Potomac River when raking oysters below Aquia Creek. By soaking in brackish water, and by deposit, they have undergone some alteration, even from those found in the greensand beds.

It is still interesting to observe how large an amount of lime phosphate is preserved after so long-continued solvent action of the weak saline water of the Potomac River at that point.

THOMAS ANTISELL, M. D.

Hon. HORACE CAPRON, Commissioner.

THE FOOD AND HABITS OF BEETLES.

The following suggestions are submitted, partly from personal observation, and partly from the best authentic sources, both American and foreign, for the use of young entomologists, or persons who wish to study and identify the various beetles injurious or beneficial to vegetable and to animal substances.

The first part will contain the latest scientific name, as also the common or vulgar appellation by which the insect is generally known, wherever it is possible to give it, with reference to some of the various authors who have described the insect, and a very brief history of its habits in the larva, pupa, or perfect state, together with the various vegetable or animal substances upon which it is found or feeds. Each insect, specially named, will be distinguished by a number in brackets, so as to be readily referred to by persons seeking information.

The second part will contain an alphabetical list of the plants and other substances upon which certain species of beetles feed, with the number in brackets before alluded to attached to it, as referring to the first part where the insects themselves are mentioned. The American works referred to in this sketch are those of Dr. Leconte, of Say, Harris, Fitch, the "American Entomologist," &c. The descriptions of the habits of the various families are taken chiefly from Dr. Leconte, or Westwood, an English entomologist, who, in his valuable work on the "Classification of Insects," gives the most lucid and brief descriptions, which will apply to the insects of the United States as well as to those of England, and in many cases throw much light upon the food and habits of many species in this country which have hitherto been unknown. The German work of Leunis also gives some very interesting details about the food and habits of several European insects, which also will be quoted. It is much to be regretted that many of our young entomologists merely collect, classify, and arrange insects in their cabinets for exhibition, without ever troubling themselves to ascertain anything about their previous existence as larva or pupa, or the plants upon which they feed when in the larva state, or the various transformations they undergo before they appear as perfect beetles. Were this subject made a more especial study, there is no doubt that farmers would learn much, and be better prepared to suggest methods of destroying them, than is the case at present.

PART I.

The first family of coleoptera (beetles), Cicindelidæ, contains many species. These insects are generally of medium size, of swift motions, and frequently of bright metallic green, bronze, or brown colors, having their wing cases ornamented with cream-colored spots or stripes, from which, and their great voracity, they have derived the common name of tiger beetles. The larvæ are fleshy, curved grubs, of a yellowish white color, with large and powerful jaws, and hooks or spines on their backs. They burrow cylindrical holes in the ground, in which they lie in wait for any passing insect. They lie at the mouth of this burrow, having their head and thorax closing the opening, so as to be ready to seize any other in

sect, which, when caught, is immediately dragged to the bottom of their 79 burrow, and devoured at leisure. The pupa is also formed in the same hole, and the perfect tiger beetle may be seen, any fine day in summer or autumn, flying on hot, sandy roads in the sunshine, but generally alighting again at a short distance, with its head turned toward the intruder, so as to be able to make another flight if necessary. As these tiger beetles, in both the larva and the perfect state, destroy all other insects they can overcome, they may be considered beneficial, and will be classed under the head of "Predaceous" in the list of vegetable or animal substances destroyed by beetles. Cicindela vulgaris (1.) (Say, 2, pp. 422 and 522) is a very common species, and is of a bronze color, with cream-colored marks on the wing cases.

The second family, Carabidæ, or ground beetles, vary very much in size, form, and color; their bodies are of a firm consistence, whereby they are enabled to creep under stones, bark, &c. Most of the species are eminently insectivorous, prowling about on the surface of the ground, under stones, or beneath the bark of trees or moss, in search of their prey, which consists of other insects. Some of the European species, however, are said to attack grain, and the larva of our

2.

1.

native Omophron labiatum, (2) (Say, 2, p. 495), a small beetle of a black color, margined or bordered with a brownish yellow, is said to be very destructive to young maize in the southern States. One of our finest beetles of this family is Calosoma calidum, (3) Fab.

3.

(Say, 2, pp. 491 and 527). This insect is very common in Maryland and Virginia, and the larva was taken in the act of devouring caterpillars of the common army worm (Leucania extranea, Guen), in an oat field, near Washington. Great numbers of the larvae of the beetle were observed running about in the midst of the army worms, seizing and destroying all that crossed their path; some of them were indeed so voracious as to become bloated with food, and almost unable to move. this was the case, the full-fed and inactive When gluttons almost invariably became the prey of their more meager and nimble brethren. The perfect beetle is of a dark coppery color, beautifully dotted with several rows of metallic golden spots on the wing cases. Calosoma scrutator (4) Fab. (Say, 2, p. 491) is much larger in size, and of a most beautiful metallic golden-green color; in the perfect state it also feeds upon caterpillars and insects, even ascending trees to obtain its favorite food. One of the family, Brachinus fumans, (5) (Say, 2, p. 439), is rather common under stones, and is mentioned here as having the singular habit, when either alarmed or irritated, of discharging from the posterior extremity of its body a caustic fluid; this discharge is remarkable for an audible detonation with its accompanying cloud of smoke as in the discharge of a gun; hence its common name of Bombardier beetle. Westwood states that the vapor, which is of a very pungent odor, is also emitted when chased by other insects, in order to enable it to escape from its enemies. The wing-cases of this beetle are of a dark color, whilst the head, thorax, and legs are of a yellow brown.

5.