THE WHITE ANT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXX, Issue 8578, 4 September 1888, Page 6

THE WHITE ANT.

Everybody has now hoard of the earthworm theory, viz., that on an acre of land in, say England, ten tons of dry earth are passed through the' bodies of worms and brought to the surface yearly, to the great benefit of agriculture. Mr Henry Drummond, who liar been exploring and closely observing in tropical Atrica, has evolved a parallel theory or practice for the white ant, and notes that , thanks to their continuous and tremendous toil, they maintain a constant circulation of earth in the tropics, “a ploughing andharrowing, not furrow by furrow, but pellet by pellet and grain by grain.” Thus, as Mr Drummond gees on to observe, “instead of an upper crust moistened to a paste by the rain, and then baked hard as adamant in the sun; and an under soil, hermetically sealed from the air and light, and inaccessible to all the normal manures derived from the decomposition of organic matter, we have a slow and continued transference of the layers always taking place.” In a word, as Mr Drummond distinctly proves, the main cause of the amazing fertility and productiveness of tropical Africa is just. the white ant, an insect that ought accordingly to be emblazoned on the heraldic shield of the Dark Continent.