At Cape Town, in the extreme south part of Africa, two days out of three are clear and the daily range of temperature is from 48° to 83°, making fairly pleasant conditions during the Christmas holidays. At Melbourne, Australia, one half of the days are cloudy, and the temperature is moderate, having a range from 54° to 75°. Thus we see that the climatological features of the world, not only on Christmas but on any other day of the year, are as varied as the hopes and wishes of man, and whatever his desires or physical necessities may be, a climate may be found under the influence of which he may find pleasure and gain health. =The Hottest and the Coldest Places in the World.= It is an innate characteristic of the human race to be interested in the abnormal, whether it be in the achievements of men or in the extremes of natural phenomena. This is especially true with regard to the weather. During periods of extremes of heat or cold the natural inquiry is as to whether there ever has been a period of equal or greater severity. Although suffering intensely there always is a desire to “beat the record.” It therefore may be of interest briefly to refer to the hottest and the coldest places in the world. =North America.= One of the most torrid places in the United States is in that remarkable region known as Death Valley. It is located in Southern California. Its name is supposed to be derived from a melancholy tragedy that occurred in 1850, in which every member of a party of emigrants perished in Death Valley from thirst and exhaustion, leaving the bones of themselves and their animals to whiten in the sun. The valley is the bed of an ancient salt sea which existed when the climate was much wetter than now; its soil is largely composed of sand, salt, and borax. The borax deposits are large; at places they form crusts that support the weight of travelers. The length of the valley is seventy-five miles, but it is narrow at the bottom, in places being no more than six miles. One of its remarkable features is that its bottom, in many places, is three hundred feet below the level of the sea, one hundred miles to the west. It is fed by several small streams and innumerable warm springs, the water from which is entirely absorbed by the porous soil, although water may be found by digging down a few feet. The water is unfit for use. It is a desolate and forbidden region, inhabited by gnats, toads, lizards, and snakes. However, the employees of a company engaged in the business of marketing borax spend a portion of each year there.