In 1828-9, in the provinces lying between the Black and Caspian Seas, Locusts appeared in such vast numbers as were never seen in that country before.[362] In 1839, Kaffraria was again visited by Locusts, which, together with the war at that time, caused so great a famine that many persons perished for want of subsistence.[363] Again in 1849-50, this country was visited by this dreadful scourge. The whole country, says the Rev. Francis Fleming, was covered with them; and when they arose, the cloud was so dense that this gentleman was obliged to dismount, and wait till they passed over.[364] Mr. Jules Remy says, that at his arrival at Salt Lake, he observed upon the shore, on the top of the salt, a deposit of a foot deep which was entirely composed of dead Locusts--_Œdipoda corallipes_. These insects, driven by a high wind in prodigiously thick clouds, had been drowned in the lake, after having, during the course of the summer (of 1855), destroyed the rising crops, and even the prairie grass. A famine ensued; but the Mormons, continues Mr. Remy, only saw in this scourge a fresh proof of the truth of their religion, because it had happened, as among the Israelites, in the seventh year after their settlement in the country.[365] According to Lieutenant Warren, whose graphic description is here borrowed, these devastating insects of our great western plains are “nearly the same as the Locusts of Egypt; and no one,” continues this officer, “who has not traveled on the prairie, and seen for himself, can appreciate the magnitude of the swarms. Often they fill the air for many miles in extent, so that an inexperienced eye can scarcely distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be somewhat appreciated, as Mr. Evans saw them above his head, as far as their size would render them visible, while standing on the top of a peak of the Rocky Mountains 8500 feet above the plain, and an elevation of 14,500 above that of the sea, in the region where the snow lies all the year. To a person standing in one of the swarms as they pass over and around him, the air becomes sensibly darkened, and the sound produced by their wings resembles that of the passage of a train of cars on a railroad, when standing two or three hundred yards from the track. The Mormon settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects than probably all other causes combined. They destroyed nearly all the vegetables cultivated last year at Fort Randall, and extended their ravages east as far as Iowa.”[366] The Mormons, in their simple and picturesque descriptions, say that these insects (“Crickets”--_Œdipoda corallipes_, Haldemars) are the produce of “a cross between the Spider and the Buffalo.”[367] In Egypt, in 1843, the popular idea was that the hordes of Locusts, which were then ravaging the land, were sent by the comet observed about that time for twelve days in the southwest.[368]