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 xvii
... seemed that everyone in the county—4,200 men, women, and children—would be in Centerville. As the shimmering wave seemed to wash over the hills on the other side of the Platte River, she scooped xvii.
... seemed that everyone in the county—4,200 men, women, and children—would be in Centerville. As the shimmering wave seemed to wash over the hills on the other side of the Platte River, she scooped xvii.
Page xviii
... seemed to be at the tip of a tornado, sucked into a demented whirlwind. The scream of his daughters broke the grip of his own terror. His wife and the twins hadn't made it to the house, and now the locusts were crawling into the folds ...
... seemed to be at the tip of a tornado, sucked into a demented whirlwind. The scream of his daughters broke the grip of his own terror. His wife and the twins hadn't made it to the house, and now the locusts were crawling into the folds ...
Page xxiv
... seemed to be the solution to the locust's vanishing act. He showed how these insects can transmogrify into incredibly divergent forms between their solitary and migratory phases. Following on his work, Jacobus Faure, a South African ...
... seemed to be the solution to the locust's vanishing act. He showed how these insects can transmogrify into incredibly divergent forms between their solitary and migratory phases. Following on his work, Jacobus Faure, a South African ...
Page 7
... seemed too exaggerated. A “vast ravenous army of insects ... eating every growing thing and leaving desolation in its wake,” he thought to himself; “Whoever had heard of such a visitation outside the pages of the Bible?” Chalmers, like ...
... seemed too exaggerated. A “vast ravenous army of insects ... eating every growing thing and leaving desolation in its wake,” he thought to himself; “Whoever had heard of such a visitation outside the pages of the Bible?” Chalmers, like ...
Page 8
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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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