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At our place they commenced coming down about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, at first only one at a time, here and there, looking a little like flakes of snow, but acting more like the advance skirmishers of an advancing army; soon they commenced coming thicker and faster, and they again were followed by vast columns, or bodies looking almost like clouds in the atmosphere. They came rattling and pattering on the houses, and against the windows, falling in the fields, on the prairies and in the waters – everywhere and on everything. By about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, every tree and bush, buildings, fences, fields, roads, and everything, except animated beings, was completely covered with grasshoppers.
Great suffering exists in all five of these extreme frontier counties to a fearful extent. The settlers are, in most instances, scattered over a large extent of country; a large portion of them living far up the numerous streams flowing into the Republican. If the winter should be as severe as that of seventy and seventy-one, and as deep snows fall, beyond a doubt hundreds will starve unless a supply of provisions sufficient to last them through the winter is thrown into the valley and they are provisioned for an emergency of this character, for it would be out of the question for any aid society, or the Government even, to reach anything like a majority of them in deep snows.
The extent of the swarm is difficult to ascertain, as the observer can only see a small belt. They may extend indefinitely right or left. During the flight from June 15 to 25 of 1875, I telegraphed east and west. I found a continuous line moving northward of 110 miles, and then somewhat broken 40 miles farther. The movements of the winds for five days (15th to 20th) averaged about 10 miles per hour; and the locust evidently moved considerably faster than the wind, at least 15 miles per hour.
The swarm I estimated from one-quarter to one-half mile deep. It seemed like piercing the milky-way of the heavens; my glass found no limits to them. They must have been a mile or more in depth.
They were visible from six to seven hours of each of the successive five days, and I can see no reason to suppose that their flight was checked during the whole five days. If so, the army in the line of advance would be 120 hours by 15 miles per hour = 1,800 miles in length, and say at even 110 miles in width, an area of 198,000 square miles! and then from one-quarter to one-half mile deep. This is utterly incredible, yet how can we put it aside?
