A
similar process has been recommended for the destruction of the malarial
mosquito, and should prove of great service to mankind in infected
districts. The superiority of acetylene in respect of brilliancy and
portability will at once suggest its employment as the illuminant in the
"light" moth-traps which entomologists use for entrapping moths. In these
traps, the insects, attracted by the light, flutter down panes of glass,
so inclined that ultimate escape is improbable; while they are protected
from injury through contact with the flame by moans of an intervening
sheet of glass.
Methods of spraying with carbide dust have been found useful in treating
mildew in vines; while a process of burying small quantities of carbide
at the roots has proved highly efficacious in exterminating phylloxera in
the French and Spanish vineyards. It was originally believed that the
impurities of the slowly formed acetylene, the phosphine in particular,
acted as toxic agents upon the phylloxera; and therefore carbide
containing an extra amount of decomposable phosphides was specially
manufactured for the vine-growers. But more recently it has been argued,
with some show of reason, that the acetylene itself plays a part in the
process, the effects produced being said to be too great to be ascribed
wholly to the phosphine.
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