OCR Text |
Show GUNPOWDEE BEETLES. 201 dental breaking of a keg, as the wagon jolted along, it might have lost through the crevices. I also noticed that the powder was only in the ruts made by the wheels of the wagons. The quantities seemed to increase, and determining to prevent, if possible, any further waste, I galloped to the other end of the train, and called Gov. Young's attention to it. The caravan was stopped, and I dismounted to obtain a specimen of it to show the Governor, when I discovered that they were minute living insects of the beetle tribe, but no larger than a grain of rifle gunpowder, and at the distance of a foot it was impossible to tell the difference. When the heaps were closely examined, they appeared a moving living mass; on the road, ahead of the wagon there were none to be seen; the weight of the wheels seemed to have pressed them through the snow, with which the whole valley was covered. The contrast of these minute, black insects on the dazzling snow was remarkable; for ten miles, it appeared as if two continuous trains of gunpowder, from three to»five inches wide, were laid the whole length of the Parvain Valley. Neither the Governor nor the gentlemen who accompanied the expedition, had ever remarked a similar phenomenon before, although they had frequently travelled over the same road. 9* |