Evening star., 1915-04-11

ference is that Pharaoh had the locust
for only a season, while the Argentines g
often have it year after year In !,
succession. The locusts that spread
over Egypt sailed in on an east wind.
Those that cover Argentina fly down
from the north, and. like their sisters
of Egypt, they come in such sWarms
that they cover the face of the sun and
darkness falls on the land They eat
every herb. and when they depart
there remains not any green thing in
the trees or in the herbs of the field
throughout all the land that they cover.
Said the chronological expert. Mr.
Smith. in talking with me:
THE Bible description of the plague
is not overdrawn. With the exception
of the paradise tree, the locusts de-
stroy every green thing. They eat the
crops from the fields and chew up the
grass They clean the fruit trees OF
their leaves. and eat off the bark to the
wood. / have passed through orchards
where the oranges were still hanging
on tho branches, although not lear
was to be seen. The locusts will go
into a cornfield and strip the leaves
from the stalks. and if the corn is
small they may eat it down to the
ground. I have travelled through miles
of such fields. and through orchards
where the locusts have hung to the
branches like bees when swarmins, the
branches often breaking with the
weight of the locusts."
-
During a tour up the Rio de la Plata
river ] saw fields devastated by locusts,
and travelled with DR.. Habenicht, who
is connected with a colony of Seventh
day Adventists from the United States.
That colony is located in the province
of Entire Rios, in a region that has fire.
auent invasions of locusts. Said DR..
Habenicht:
The hoppers frequently strip large
trees of their bark, leaving nothing
but the white skeletons standing.
Where they attack the ripe fruit you
may see the peach stones still hanging
and the bark of the tree completely
taken away. They clean the grass from
the ground, and cut the wheat in the
fields SO that the earth looks as though
it were burnt. At times they cover
the ground to a depth of two or three
inches. hopping one over the other in
be millions and millions of these hop
ping locusts. and when they fly they
darken the sun.
'"The size of the locust swarms va
may cover but few acres. and at 9TH
ers they may shade the land for many
square miles. I recently passed
through locust swarm on railroad
train. For more than an hOur we rode
through a cloud of locusts which ex-
tended far out on both sides of the car.
1t was almost two hundred feet high.
The locusts were not in one solid mass
and as they flew they looked like a
snowstorm, their transparent wings
catching the sun. and having the ap-
pearance of snowfiakes. After a time
we passed out of that swarm and into
another. The latter was thick. for the
locusts were about to settle down for
the night. They usually stop over
night. This last swarm was about two
thousand feet wide. fifty feet high and
a mile long. When saw it in the dis
tance it was so black that thought a
storm was coming, and I asked the
porter about the cloud. He replied that
the cloud was the 1angosto," or locust
A little later our cars dashed into the
swarm and found he knew what he
was talking about. The locusts were
flying high enough not to affect the
movement of the train, and we went
right through them. This is not al
ways possible. When they fly near the
ground they sometimes cover the track
and the cars crush them. making the
rails SO greasy that the wheels will not
catch. They just fly around and around
while the cars stand still. In such
cases two of the brakemen often sit on
the cowca tcher, holding brooms on