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10

"Eighty-six the year around" may seem an underestimate but, as a matter of fact, the mercury stays very close to that point from year's end to year's end, seldom rising above ninety. (The temperature of a hundred and twenty, spoken of on page 3, was only found in the deepest parts of the Gaillard Cut at noon.) At night it is always cool enough to necessitate a light covering, and never so hot that one cannot sleep, as it too often is in a Northern summer. It is always summer in Panama, and no hotter in August than in December. Snow-storms and cold weather are, of course, unknown, though three times since the Americans established a weather bureau on the Isthmus it has recorded brief local showers of hail.

Instead of four seasons, there are two: the rainy and the dry. From April to the end of November it rains very frequently, not every day, as is sometimes declared, but often enough and hard enough to fill, in those nine months, a tank from twelve to fifteen feet deep. With so much rain, and an ocean on either hand, the dampness and humidity are very great. Mold gathers on belts and shoes; guns and razors become rusty unless coated with oil; books must not be left outside air-tight glass cases or they will fall to pieces; and every sunshiny day the clothes closets are emptied and the garments hung out to air.

At that time of year it is easy to realize why houses on the Isthmus are built up in the air on concrete legs; and