Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American FrontierThroughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly -- and mysteriously -- vanished. A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time. |
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Page xxii
... evidence that our quest had not been a foolhardy venture. Could these soggy bodies be the bizarre treasure that might prove to be a window into the last days of the Rocky Mountain locust? Larry's ruddy face split into a grin at the ...
... evidence that our quest had not been a foolhardy venture. Could these soggy bodies be the bizarre treasure that might prove to be a window into the last days of the Rocky Mountain locust? Larry's ruddy face split into a grin at the ...
Page xxiv
... evidence in icy graves and on musty bookshelves. For fifteen years I worked on this case, sometimes for only a few days at a time, sometimes for months. It is a tale of people, egos, values, and insects colliding to generate a ...
... evidence in icy graves and on musty bookshelves. For fifteen years I worked on this case, sometimes for only a few days at a time, sometimes for months. It is a tale of people, egos, values, and insects colliding to generate a ...
Page xxv
... evidence in shadowy museums and on vast grasslands, and digging through frozen mud and crumbling maps turns a scientific riddle into a personal quest. Solving the mystery of the Rocky Mountain locust has taught me a great deal about the ...
... evidence in shadowy museums and on vast grasslands, and digging through frozen mud and crumbling maps turns a scientific riddle into a personal quest. Solving the mystery of the Rocky Mountain locust has taught me a great deal about the ...
Page 37
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Page 41
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Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that ... Jeffrey A. Lockwood No preview available - 2005 |
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