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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



tograph by Robinson-Matlack Company 



THE FIGHT AT SEA-LEVEL 



Along Florida's palm-fringed coast, where the trees must defend themselves against the ever- 

 blowing trade winds, now and then backed by an angry sea. 



forces of Frost. The buried branches 

 were smothered as effectually as though 

 there had been a gas attack ; unable to 

 breathe, they could not throw off the 

 fungi mycelia, the trench rats of their 

 battle line. 



Some conditions obtain on the Andean 

 battle front that do not apply elsewhere. 

 In the tropical Andes one finds the cin- 

 chona trees, from which the quinine of 

 commerce is derived. From their south- 

 ern range to their northern limit these 

 trees cover nearly thirty degrees of lati- 



tude, or approximately eighteen hundred 

 miles. They never venture lower than 

 2,500 feet above sea-level, though they 

 frequently climb as high as 9,000 feet; 

 but at the latter altitude they drop out, 

 leaving to elfin trees and shrub wood the 

 march to the higher reaches. On the 

 broad, desolate steppes of the alpine belt 

 there often appear isolated, gnarled 

 dwarf trees of the species Polylcpsis 

 lanuginosa. 



In none of the other theaters of war 

 where the trees and the frost meet in 



