48 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



general elevation, with some local exceptions, being act- 

 ually less than three hundred feet. 



Florida's average level above the sea, according to To- 

 ner's Dictionary of Elevations is sixty feet, while that of 

 Louisiana is seventy-five feet ; no very great difference, 

 you see, yet no one looks askance at Louisana on that 

 account, even though it necessitates the construction and 

 maintenance at an immense expense of a levee to keep the 

 land from being inundated at times by the '' Father of 

 Waters," an' effort, as we all know, not always successful 

 either. 



But enough for the present of the surface of Florida. 

 We have seen sufficient to prove that, while she has no 

 mountain ridge to cool the air with snow and ice and sud- 

 den blasts of wind, yet neither can she be justly described, 

 as she has so often been by her enemies, as ' ' one vast ex- 

 panse of swamps and flat woods." 



"Low," as regards elevation above the sea, in compari- 

 son with many countries, Florida undoubtedly is; but 

 compare her with some others and her lowest lands become 

 high lands. 



Look across the ocean, for instance, at the Old World. 

 The valley of Jordan is no less than one thousand feet 

 below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. The countries 

 lying along the Caspian Sea are lower than its surface; 

 and why is it that a large portion of Holland has to be 

 defended by a system of dykes against the inroads of the 

 waters? Not, surely, because her lands lie higher than 

 the waves that beat against her shores. 



Yet these countries we have named are healthy and fer- 

 tile, and thickly populated, and no one thinks of casting 

 their lowly station in their teeth. 



** Chiefly low, and generally damp and malarial," those 

 9,re the words we quoted a while ago as applied to Florida 



