"what shall I NEED?" 179 



Tuesday, at seven in the morning, the mark was 21°, 

 the lowest of all ; but toward nightfall the wind veered 

 from the inexorable west to the north and the northeast, 

 and there was a perceptible moderation of the sharpness 

 in the air. The sun sank with the th-ermometer at 36° — 

 higher than it had been since Saturday afternoon — and it 

 was evident that the worst Avas over ; indeed, the friendly 

 Signal Office again notified us, this time, that Jack was 

 going home. 



It was full time, for the damage he did in those four days 

 would with many take more than four years to repair. 

 Not only frozen fruit, but in numerous places young trees 

 were gone. In a few instances even large, bearing trees 

 were killed to the ground. The extreme southern sections 

 escaped but little better than the more northern portions, 

 and the famous ''frost line," that every body has been try- 

 ing to locate these many years proved itself to be a grand 

 fraud and non-existent. 



It is a fact also to be noted that every where in the Great 

 Lake regions, or wherever there was Avater protection, the 

 damage done was less, because the temperature was per- 

 ceptibly raised by the latent heat stored up in the great 

 sheets of water over which the cold wave passed. 



There were two or three decided flurries of snow during 

 Tuesday ; it was cloudy and moderating, and as some of us 

 remarked, " If we were North, we should say, it was go- 

 ing to snow ;" but we were just as astonished for all that. 

 Snow in Florida was one thing we had never expected to 

 see ; nor ice that lay in the sun for three days without 

 thawing, ice several inches thick, and not artificial ice 

 either ; nor ice that remained in our rooms all day long in 

 spite of good, crackling fires ; nor water, spilled within four 

 feet of the stove, that froze as it touched the floor. 



We are not likely to see another such visit from Jack 



