50 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



they were, on her lowest grounds and on the bank of the 

 St. John's River and the Gulf of Mexico. As a matter of 

 fact the relative humidity of Florida year by year is less 

 than that of five out of eight of the most celebrated 

 European health resorts. 



The beautiful Tillandsia usneoides, or Spanish moss, 

 which adds so much to the beauty and grandeur of our 

 Southern forests, and is one of the most admired among 

 the many novelties that attract the attention of a new- 

 comer, is often quoted as a proof of the excessive moisture 

 in Florida's atmosphere. Now it is quite true that in 

 those spots where this graceful drapery is found in the 

 greatest abundance there is a very moist local atmosphere ; 

 note that word, local, for in that lies the explanation of 

 the seeming contradiction. Some people have an idea that 

 the moss itself creates the dampness^ while in truth it finds 

 already there the moisture it requires for its daily food, and 

 by living upon it and taking it up out of the air actually 

 lessens the amount and so performs valuable sanitary ser- 

 vice. Its presence in large quantities — which is always in 

 low hammock lands — indicates the existence of super- 

 abundant moisture, but has the opposite effect to increas- 

 ing it ; and yet it is frequently found scattered about here 

 and there, forming a most luxuriant drapery on isolated 

 trees, growing on high and dry lands, but here its presence 

 is no indication of dampness. The sunshine pours down 

 on it all day long, and water may not be any Avhere near 

 it, but it thrives, nevertheless, on the same principle that 

 one man can live upon less than two. 



The great scientist, Vivenot, has carefully classified the 

 degrees of relative humidity as follows : ''It being under- 

 stood that here as elsewhere, the basis of all such figures is 

 the air saturated so that it can hold no more moisture in 

 invisible suspension. This point is marked as one hundred 



