DESERT ENGINEERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 487, 17 October 1928, Page 12

DESERT ENGINEERS

In a thirsty land where, as sometimes happens in South Africa, a three-years drought dries up every blade of grass, the white ants always have water. The reason has just been found by M. Marais, a South African naturalist. The ants are water-find-ers and well-sinkers. On a Transvaal farm while a man’s well was being sunk the borers' cam# upon a tiny two-inch shaft running into the earth. The ants had been there before them! They had sunk an ant-well 65ft deep to where water was to be found. Up and down this shaft, night and day, water-carrying ants went, each bearing its drop of water. It took each ant half an hour to get down to the reservoir, draw its water, and bring it up to the nest. Then down again it went. There appeared to be night shifts and day shifts, and th# night ants worked the hardest. It may be true, as declared by M. Forel, the greatest living authority on ants, that they are creatures w'orking almost w’holly by instinct, and only to the extent of about two per cent, by intelligent or reflective observation; but when it comes to wat#rflnding their intuition makes them hard to beat.