The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-02-07
rom my swimming hole SO could go

from my swimming hole so / could go
in.)
When we reached home Looked a.
the thermometer and it read in the
neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five
below. To give you some idea of the
intensity OF the cold, I can, when it
is, say anywhere below forty'flve be-
low zero, take pan Of boiling water,
throw it into the air and it never
reaches the ground. Just like some
high explosive which is ignited with
out being confined. it turns to steam
with a roaring sound and not sin
gle drop gets away.
OF course this steam fcats away
and quickly turns to frost-crystals
invisible to the naked eye-being
then deposited on the ground. Sounds
like a fairy-tale, but 1t isn't. Why
Cowden, to simply blow ones breath
ever so lightly makes a noise like
high pressure steam escaping and to,
make quick inhalation with the
mouth open will freeze the lungs.
You can imagine what that means
The other evening was up at the
post Office when the 'Kuyokuk" mail
came in and it was a great sight.
They came from the very northern
part Of Alaska-up near Wiseman and
7 heard the main man say that at
places it was as cold as eighty-fve
below zero, but he kept coming.
He was mass of frost and ice
could hardly see at all. His great
furs were caked with snow and ice
the dog sled was all ice where had
gone through an overflow, and. al
though his dogs were moccasined.
they were bleeding at the feet Those
dogs are game devils, too-great mall
amutes;- some of them part wolf
and they will work until they freeze
or drop dead as rule.
United States mail--that's the way
my letters come and go-I mean un-
der like conditions, and that we are
able to exchange mail at all is
mystery to me. It is post orders In
Alaska that no soldier be ordered out
for duty whatever after the tempera
ture drops to forty-fve below, but at
the same time should the telegraph
line 60 down, they don't order you
out, but you 60 anyway. 1t is custo-
mary among the boys to forget to
look at the thermometer before they
start.
Then, in the summer months you
can hardly realize that just few
inches beneath your feet there IS per-
petual frost for they have the most
beautiful flowers and the trees and
bushes are rich looking. The vege-
tables they raise would make any of
the southern farmers Il mean any
farmer south of here) sit up and take
notice. There is beautiful celery, let
tuce, cabbage, potatoes-in fact about
everything anyone else can grow and
it's of fine large size, too.
There is one drawback to all these
Alaskan vegetables which are grown
III or around the tundra sections
they are watery and not so solid. 4
good many miles south OF here there
are plenty Of fairly good sized vege.
table patches, but up here It is too
handy to the Arctic Circle for much
farming. There is an abundance Of
blue-berries and wild cranberries--
the Alaska life-preserver. 2r
The heat like the cold in Alaska)
in it's season is intense-and is very
much greater than I have ever seen
in Florida. 1t does not last long, but
plenty long enough to breed the mos
quitoes which keep fellow interested
until in September.
I used to think that Florida had
more than her quota Of skeeters but.
although I am not accustomed to
knocking the BEST State, am COM
PEELED to do so just once. Old Florida
is a million years behind the times