accompanied by thunder and lightning, but are seldom of more than two hours’ duration. They generally occur early in the afternoon, leaving for the balance of the day a cloudless sky and a delightfully cool atmosphere. Paradoxical as it may seem, our winters are warmer and our summers cooler than those of the Northern and Western States. The mercury in the thermometer rarely reaches 96° Fahrenheit in midsummer, and at Braidentown, Manatee County, only on two occasions during the past four years has it fallen as low as 38°.

The general healthfulness of Florida is proverbial. That its climate is more salubrious than that of any other State of the Union is clearly established by the medical statistics of the army, as well as by the last census returns. The report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army, demonstrates the fact that diseases which result from malaria are of a much milder type in Florida than in any other part of the United States. Among the troops serving in Florida, the number of deaths to the number of cases of remittent fever has been much less than in any other portion of the Union. In the Middle Division of the United States, the proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of remittent fever; in the Northern Division, one to fifty-two; in the Southern Division, one to fifty-four; in Texas, one in seventy-eight; in California, one in one hundred and twenty-two; in New Mexico, one in one hundred and forty-eight; while in Florida, it is but one in two hundred and eighty-seven. As a health resort for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints, Florida stands pre-eminent. Her invigorating, balsamic breezes, with healing on their wings, soon banish the hectic flush from the cheek of the invalid, and health and strength return once more to cheer and gladden the hearts of despairing friends.

A description of Florida lands published by Dr. Byrne in 1860 applies with equal truthfulness at the present time. In every State and Territory in the Union there is a large proportion of barren and poor lands, but the ratio of these lands differ greatly in the different States. Florida has a due proportion of poor lands, but compared with other States, the ratio of her barren and worthless lands is very small. With the exception of the Everglades and her irreclaimable swamp lands, there is scarcely an acre in the whole State of Florida that is entirely worthless, or which cannot be made, under her tropical climate, tributary to some agricultural production. Lands which in a more northern climate would be utterly worthless, will in Florida, owing to her tropical character, yield valuable productions. For example, the poorest pine lands of Florida will produce without fertilizing a luxuriant crop of Sisal hemp, which yields more profit to the acre than the richest land when cultivated in sugar, cotton, and tobacco. So it is with jute and numerous other valuable tropical products that are adapted to the lands that in more northern climates would yield nothing to agriculture. Besides this, there are in Florida no mountain wastes, and most of the land not under cultivation is covered with valuable timber.

The classification of lands in common use being based on their elevation and the character of their vegetable growth, does not indicate very fully the character of the soil. There are the hammock, pine, and swamp lands. Then there is the high or light hammock, and the low or heavy hammock. Of pine lands, there are the first, second, and third rate. The characteristic of hammock land as distinguished from pine is in the fact of its being covered with a growth of underbrush and vines, while the pine lands are open. Whenever, then, the land is not so low as to be called swamp, and produces an undergrowth of shrubbery, it is called hammock.

The school lands of Florida—five hundred and seventy thousand acres—are subject to entry at from one dollar and twenty-five cents to seven dollars per acre, according to quality and location. The swamp lands—eight and a half million acres—belonging to the State on the 1st of May, 1882, are graded in price according to the number of acres, varying from one dollar per acre for a tract of forty acres down to seventy-five to seventy cents per acre for tracts of six hundred and forty acres and over. The Disston Syndicate paid twenty-five cents per acre for four million acres of swamp land, in bodies of ten thousand acres each. The commutation price of United States lands is one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Unimproved lands in the hands of private parties are selling at from five to fifteen dollars per acre; improved land at from twenty to fifty dollars per acre, the value depending on location, latitude, improvements, etc. There are also large tracts of land in Florida known as “Spanish grants,” which are chiefly owned by non-residents, and which can be purchased at reasonable prices.

SCENE IN A SOUTH FLORIDA HAMMOCK—Page 28.

Governor Bloxham recently stated that the present financial condition of Florida is a fit subject for congratulation. There is at all times money in the Treasury to pay accrued liabilities, while the amount of the bonded debt is only one and a quarter millions, and the assessed value of the property of the State is thirty-seven millions. The condition of our public schools is decidedly progressive. There are at this time over twelve hundred schools in the State, and last year a fund of $139,000 was raised to support them.

Places of worship may be found in all our settlements; not gorgeous edifices, with steeples and spires pointing heavenward, but unpretentious and comfortable structures, in which all denominations of Christians assemble to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. The Methodists are the most numerous. Next in point of numbers, the Baptists of different grades of shell, from hard to soft, may be enumerated. Then come the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Campbellites, and Catholics, with a slight sprinkling of other denominations by way of variety. The religious status of the population of Florida, like the climate, is rather above the average of other sections of the Union. There is an indescribable element in the climate of Florida which is conducive of religious fervor. Several immigrants from the North and West, whose piety never cropped out until their arrival in Florida, have been suddenly seized with a call to preach. In some parts of South Florida, local preachers are nearly as numerous as laymen, and it is often highly amusing to hear them expound the Scriptures, and see them wrestle with theology.

The Fountain of Youth, sought for in vain by Ponce de Leon three hundred and seventy years ago, is in Florida. Time has not dried up the source of its health-giving, its life-giving, waters. They flow as of yore, and every one who thirsteth can partake of them freely. Invalids and pleasure-seekers find it in our glorious climate, in our invigorating breezes, which blow as soft and balmy as those from Ceylon’s isle; in our beautiful flowers and almost perpetual verdure, and in the total absence of the chilling winds and frosts of the North and West, which render life almost unendurable. De Soto and his followers sought our shores in quest of El Dorado. That