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' THE OREGON " SUNDAY JOURNAL, ; PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING. . OCTOBER: 20, 1907 ;
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'AN you imagine an elephant as a
pigmy beside a fleaf
Then you have never considered
the marvelous strength with which tiny
insects have been endowed by nature, in
proportion to their size. There is nothing
more wonderful than this in the domain
of animal life.
More than two hundred times its own
height can the flea leap. At this rate man
would be able to skit ov
Tower at Paris, which is 9
with little effort.
It has been estimated that a certain
little beetle, if it attained the size of a
cow, with its strength increased in propor
tion, could slaughter and carry off a herd
of six steers at one sweep.
The smaller insects are the stronger
they are, as a rule. Had nature been
prodigal with them and given them great
er size made them, say, 1000 or 1,000,
000 times larger and increased their
over the Eiffel jnuscular powers accordingly well, to
Q84 feet high, say the least, old tarth would not have
been habitable for man.
rERCULEAN, strength, then, does not rest In
human beings, nor even In the royal mon
arch of the Jungle these types of physi
cal power are anomalous and false. In the
tiniest Insects of the earth, beetle, fleas, and even
creatures of the wafer. Is found a strength which.
In proportion to the slie of the animal, makes man
appear one of the weaklings of creation and such
animals as the elephant mere pigmies.
If the strength of a little oyster's jaws, for In
stanoe,. were gtvtt) to man-In-proportion to his sice,
man could hold at arm's length eighty locomotives.
If the strength exhibited by a small water seal
lop In the muscular resistance of closing Its shell r
were given In proportion to man, an acrobat could
Juggle balls weighing thirty-four ton's.
Certain beetles, If the sixe of a horse, would be
able to exert twenty-one times a horse's strength;
the little white ants, which build hard mounds of
earth, if enlarged to a sise near that of man, would
build houses nearly a mile high, beside which the
boasted skyscrapers of the present would resemble
toadstools. The human mind can hardly conceive a
more terrible creature than the 1 ordinary spider
grown to the sise of man or larger; it would catch
human beings and devour them more easily than the
spider does the fly.
The mind, br no stretch of Imagination, could
a log ovtr twenty-eight feet long and twenty Inches
square. This Is practically what the ordinary housefly
does when, with Its feet, as you hold it by the wings.
It grasps and lifts a match. What would the fly
do If It were several hundred or several thousand
times larger and Just as pestiferous and tantalls-
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An earwig tan drag six matches with ease. To
compete with this little animal. If enlarged to his
sise, a draft horse would have to pull 8(0 logs as
long and round as himself. "
Astounding strength" was discovered among the
shellfish. Tremendous force lies in the musoles of
the little bivalves which hold fast and tight the
closed shell
To teat this strength the Belgian naturalist in
serted between the two shells of mollusks two
hooks, one of which supported the flsb and the
other a scale. This scale was gradually loaded with
weights until the shells were forced open.
Strength is a term hardly to be applied to man
when on considers the wonderful power of these
creatures of the water. An oyster bore a weight of
roas to destroy them. One can conceive
the colossal character of this wore when
he considers that these houses are formed
of bits of mud ofthe sise of the head of a pin, which
the little worker carries distances of one to two miles.
The armor of steel-clad battleships would not be
proof against the porouplne-Uke darts of a little sea
creature were its sise anywhere near that of a present-day
ship. These little creatures throw out from
their bodies myriads of tiny arrows with tremendous
energy. Were one of these little fighters the sise of
modern ship, or even less, it could sink a fleet of bat
tleshlps by its submarine missiles.
Birds have possibly greater power. They take long .
Journeys, such, for Instance, as crossing the Medlter .
ranean, without rest-. This, too, in the face of tha
fearful storms that prevail there. As to speed, tha
swallow can make from sixty to ninety miles an hour
a pace rather humiliating for the automoblllsts.
. Power ' is manifested in other ways by insects.
.Some of .the beetles, for Instance, have a skin so hard
. that it requires-a pin driven by hammer blows to pen
etrate it Their hold on life is vastly superior to that
of man. '
Nature was exceedingly merciful to man when she
restricted the else of suoh powerful little creatures.
Were the elephant a pigmy beside, the flea, man would
be 'compelled-to -'dwell in hiding from hundreds of
insects that he now crashes contemptuously under
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conceive a mora appalling state of affair than that
, which would exist If. small insects grew to the size
-.' of man with their present strength increased in
, s proportion. '
f; An ordinary cricket, one of those seemingly
L - - harmless creatures,: whose only mission in life is to
, , . chirp, if grown to human sise, would be invulnera
't ble to tha attacks of a regiment of men. The great
shell-like covering of the. head and forepart of the
body would withstand the bullets of tbe most pow-
arful riflea. This giant cricket, could carry on a
campaign of forage and destruction with immu
" ulty. JJan would be helplesa
r'o man Jiving could hold with bis arms and lega
ing as it Is at present?
Nightmares of horrors, things
more fearful than aught to be seen
in an opium dream, would confront
us, if many of the ordinary beetles
which we now trample under foot
had been permitted by nature to
grow, to the sise of beasts of the
field, and retain proportionate
strength.
Poe, in his story of "The Sphinx,"
describes a pleasant apparition
compared to what the- ordinary bee
tle would be under aucb conditions.
Imagine a great creature, with
blood-hued, scaled body and sharp
horns, with a shield as Impenetra
ble as steel over the back, and long
legs moving like the pistons and
rods of a giant engine, and claws
that could crush one as between
two sharp saws!
Many of the small beetles, if de
veloped several thousand or a mil
lion times their else, could devour
a herd of oxen as readily as the
oxen now pluok a bunch of grapes
from a vine, and would take jump
a mile in length.
As tfi creatures of the animal
kingdom decrease in size their
strength increases proportionately.
This, undoubtedly. Is a wise provi
sion of nature.: In prehistoric times,
however, the leviathans of the sea
and the monsters of the land pos
sessed incredible strength. Sup
pose, as the human . race declines,
the - little creatures should grow
larger, and, instead of losing their strength, should
aia in muscular power!
Plateau, a Belgian naturalist of world-wide repute,
ha" mad perimenta in testing the strength of in
sects and even infinitesimal water creatures, and their
pnywcai power la almoat beyond one's comprehension.
m.niV1 th 'and roses you will find a
?r? which can jump 100
. T-wI nZ. I ,,a ta etralght line BOO times
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Plateau constructed a very; ingenious apparatus.
This consisted of a minute harness, made of two
threads, a maH pulley and a little flat plate.
The harness was fastened to the lnsect.uid, as
it moved about, 'small weights Were placed on the
plate ' in the rear. ' This was done until,-the , little
creature could draw no more, and its strength was
registered. . t :
.These experiments showed remarkable results.
One beetle, in proportion, possessed twenty-one times
the strength of a horse; a bee was proved to be thirty
times stronger.
The bee pulled a chariot twenty times heavier
than. Itself. The majority of specimens tested,
weighing a sixth of a gramme, supported weights
of ten grammes, amounting to sixty times their
own bulk.
etrenertb. at tha amiL.. . ' wcurioiy -cne , - . j?xny. mousana or tnese insigniflcant mtie -in-anauer
anioaia and insects, aC aeota together would exert the power of one horse.;
thirty-seven pounds-before it opened the shelL - To
stand a parallel test, a man would have to hold at
arm's length forty locomotives in each hand.
The Uttle mussel resisted a weight of nearly four
bounds. The' average mollusk bore several -hundred
times Its weight-some of them BOOT times their weight
Fancy an acrobat lifting a weight of 77,000 pounds L
Among, the insects no less remarkable power was
found a power that taxes one's credulity. White ants
build mountains sometimes reaching the height of. sev
enteen feet ' r .....
These are so hard and compact in structure that
oxen can pass over them without damaging the won
derful houses. Imagine a man building a house 1000
times his height, or a mile or over upnard.
Among; the most marvelous Insect architects is a .
small be which builds a bouse of actual mortar.
Oftentimes, these structure weigh, sixty-five pounds,,
and are so secure that It is necessary to employ iron
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