62 HOME LIFE IN FLOEIDA. 



known, the latter official — proclaim that *' Florida leads 

 the list of healthy States " ? Is not the false charge of 

 "generally malarial" dead and buried? 



We have not yet referred to the singular purity of the 

 Florida air, a constituent of climate which has not until 

 recently been regarded worthy the attention it certainly 

 merits. 



The usual idea of "pure air" is simply air that is free 

 from disagreeable odors ; but this is so far from being cor- 

 rect, that the gases from which these odors emanate are 

 the least serious of the impurities of the atmosphere, and 

 very seldom exist in sufficient quantities to do any harm 

 to human beings. 



Carbonic-acid gas, which is popularly supposed to be 

 the most dangerous of all, is rarely found in injurious 

 quantities even in a crowded room, and is not in itself 

 poisonous. 



What makes the difference between "country air" and 

 ' ' city air " ? Not, as is generally believed, the presence of 

 poisonous gases to an injurious extent in the latter, as ex- 

 haled from the multitude of chimneys, workshops, and 

 animal bodies, living and dead. 



The celebrated Angus Smith tells us that the amount of 

 gases present in the air of a city and in that of the pure 

 and unadulterated country are very nearly the same. To 

 prove his assertion he makes a calculated statement of the 

 actual amount, which overturns one's previous ideas as to 

 the relative purity of city and country air. 



For instance. Lake Geneva, in 100 volumes of air, has 

 0.439 parts of gas, while in the city of London the analysis 

 shows 0.420 in the same amount of air. 



Who has not read with a thrill of horror the sad story 

 of the poisonous air of the ' ' Black Hole " of Calcutta, 

 where two hundred and sixty out of three hundred pris- 



