Author: John Richards Added: May 25, 2009
Ant farms have brought an awful lot of pleasure to children over the last 150 years. But they weren't always the modern toys we have today. How did the idea begin and who put it into practice? It's not easy to say but people seem to have begun building ant farms in the mid nineteenth century. Until the mid 1800’s, glass had been a fairly expensive commodity and certainly not something one would ‘waste’ on a child’s toy. Until the development of the float glass process, most window glass had been produced by the cylinder method, invented by Sir Henry Bessemer in 1848. Glass was made in large tubes which were then cut open and polished; no wonder it was expensive. Who first had the idea of making an ant farm by sandwiching a layer of sand between two glass sheets as a habitat for ants, we don’t know but it is quite likely to have been one of the Victorian ‘gentleman’ naturalists. These were men, usually with a private income, who, to put it bluntly, had little else to do with their time except go exploring and studying the natural world. We have a lot to thank them for, as the undoubtedly contributed much to our understanding of nature. The early models were call formicaria and tended to be located in schools and museums. In the mid-1950s the Pilkington company of England at last perfected the float glass method of manufacture that flat sheets of glass at last became available for building purposes and to the public at large. This made it possible for kids and adults alike to build ant farms simply and easily with waste glass. Simultaneously, a toy company based in Hollywood of all places, Uncle Milton Industries, began to market plastic ant habitats with great success. They gave the toy the name of 'Ant Farm' and protected the name by registering it. Half a century later the formicary has evolved into hundreds of ant farm models of many different types and sizes. Even NASA has got in on the act by developing an ant farm where the burrowing medium is not sand but a transparent nutrient gel. These are now widely available too. From the early formicaria of the gentleman naturalists to the space-age gel versions of today, the ant farm is as popular now as it ever was and the amazing activities of ants still hold us in thrall just as they did all those years ago.
--- Discover for yourself the fun you and your kids can have with an ant farm at http://www.antfarmcentral.com
Comments
| 
