the Pacific and the Atlantic, respectively, and its widest end toward the north, or the United States. I look forward to the time, which I do not think far distant, considering our continuity of territory to the United States and our immense elements of wealth, when we shall be able to provide the United States with most of the tropical products, such as sugar, coffee, tobacco, india-rubber, etc.,' which they now import from several other countries.

The widest portion of Mexico is, therefore, its northern extremity, or its boundary with the United States. The narrowest point is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, about one hundred miles from one ocean to the other; and after passing it the country expands again to the southeast towards Yucatan and Chiapas until it reaches the boundary with Guatemala and Belize.

Yucatan resembles but little in its configuration Mexico proper, as it is a level country formed by coral reefs and beds, and whose ruins show it to have been the seat of a high civilization and an advanced people.

Although the greater part of Mexico is on the North American continent proper, as the Isthmus of Panama divides North from South America, a large portion of it lies in Central America. Geographically speaking, Central America is the portion of North America embraced between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Panama, and of this vast territory Mexico holds about one-third. In a paper published in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society of New York, of March 31, 1894, I dealt especially with this subject.'

The broken surface of Mexico formerly made travelling there very difficult, for which reason the country was but little known, even by Mexicans themselves, as its configuration did not allow of the building of good roads, and to travel any considerable distance it was necessary to go by mule paths, without comfortable inns, and running great risks,. owing to the disturbed condition of the country. It required, therefore, time, expense, endurance, and an object in view to travel widely. there. I was always desirous of knowing as much as possible of the country, and I have made long trips, many of them on horseback, solely for the purpose of studying certain regions, and I think that before the railway era, I was perhaps one of the Mexicans who knew

1 In his Notes on Mexico, Lempriere, a distinguished traveller and historian, says: "The merciful hand of Providence has bestowed on the Mexicans a magnificent land, abounding in resources of all kinds-a land where none ought to be poor, and where misery ought to be unknown-a land whose products and riches of every kind are abundant and as varied as they are rich. It is a country endowed to profusion with every gift that man can desire or envy; all the metals from gold to lead; every sort of climate, from perpetual snow to tropical heat, and of inconceivable fertility."

2 A copy of that paper is appended to this article.

most of the country and who could, therefore, most clearly realize the difficulty of knowing it thoroughly. From this it can be readily understood how difficult it would be for a foreigner, without any previous knowledge of the country and ignorant of its language, to know it by a few days' sojourn there. Yet many travellers who have been in Mexico only a few days write about it on their return home, just as if they knew it perfectly, making necessarily many serious and sometimes laughable mistakes.

The natural beauties of Switzerland are well known; but to me that country is hardly to be compared with Mexico, as everything in Mexico is on a much grander scale. In the latitude in which Switzerland is situated the snow line is quite low, and, therefore, most of the peaks of the Swiss mountains, while not so high as the Mexican mountains, are covered with perpetual snow, which embellishes the country, and which, melting in summer, supplies the beautiful lakes of that country with fresh water. Therefore, only in the beauty of many snow peaks, beautiful fresh-water lakes, good roads, and fine hotels has Switzerland the superiority over Mexico.

Historians, travellers, and writers of the present day compare Mexico with Egypt. There is no doubt that between the legends and romance with which the history of each of these countries abounds there is a striking resemblance. The pyramids and ancient relics in the form of buildings, images, and undeciphered hieroglyphics on stones, coins, etc., found in both countries, all contribute to the general belief that, centuries ago, the people of Mexico and Egypt were connected by some tie, were in some way of the same race and had the same ideas. To-day in Mexico, the manner of living, of cultivating the soil, and many other peculiarities in the manners and customs of the Mexican people forcibly remind the traveller of Upper and Lower Egypt.'

1 In a very bright article about Mexico by Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, published in Harper's Illustrated Monthly Magazine for June, 1897, I find the following sentence supporting my assertion :

"In the cities he is reminded of Spain, and often of Italy (since the Catholic Church prevails), but in the country and in small towns the appearance is Oriental, or rather Egyptian. This resemblance to Egypt is due to the color or colors of the inhabitants, to the universal use of the donkey as a beast of burden, to the brown adobe walls and mud huts covered with cane, to the dust on the foliage, the clouds of dust raised in all the highways, and to a certain similarity of dress, so far as color and rags can give it, and the ability of men and women to squat all day on the ground and be happy."

Mr. Theodore W. Noyes, of Washington, in a descriptive article on Mexico, published in December, 1895, makes the following parallel between Mexico and Egypt:

"... The Egyptian shaduf finds its counterpart in the well sweep of Irapuato where strawberries are grown and sold every day in the year, and where irrigation is resorted to, systematized, and on a grand scale. In the absence of trees and rocks

I, myself, although I have only visited Lower Egypt, and that as a tourist in a very hasty manner and for a very few days, was greatly struck by the great similarity that I found between the two countries and between the habits of the native Egyptian and the Mexican Indians. The Egyptian plows are used by the Mexican Indians, and they are drawn in Mexico as in Egypt by oxen whose yokes are fastened to their horns, while in other countries they are fastened on their necks. Several of the agricultural products of Egypt and Mexico are exactly the same, and the way in which foods are prepared in both countries is, too, very similar; and I also found similar traits and race characteristics between the Egyptian Copts and some tribes of the Mexican Indians.

The great difference between Egypt and Mexico is that Mexico lacks "irrigation," which has made Egypt-that small corner of the earth-the most remarkable and productive country in the world. Owing to the great stretch of latitude from the Rio Grande to the Guatemala boundary, everything that grows in Egypt, and in fact in any other part of the world, can be produced in Mexico by the aid of irrigation.

the Egyptian shaduf is small, is composed of prepared timbers, and the counterpoise to the well bucket is an immense chunk of dried, hardened Nile mud. The Mexican shaduf utilizes a forked tree and swings across it a long tapering tree trunk or branch, and the counterpoise consists of a large sink stone or mass of stones fastened together. Although Mexico stretches farther south than Egypt, the two countries lie, generally speaking, between the same parallels of latitude, but the altitude of Irapuato is 5000 feet above the sea-level of the Nile, so that the same degree of undress is not expected or found in the Mexicans as in the Egyptian shaduf workers. I saw, however, in the neighborhood of Irapuato two Indians at well sweeps working side by side who were dressed only in white cotton loin cloths, who looked like the twin brothers of shaduf workers whom I have seen photographed on the Nile. . . The watercarrier of Cairo is much like his brother of Guanajuato, where a long earthen jar is used. The groups about the fountains with jars of water bodily borne on the women's heads or on a protecting turban-like ring, or balanced on the men's shoulders, are also Oriental. Corn is ground between two stones in Asiatic fashion.

"Egyptian sand spouts are common. Also Egyptian types of domestic utensils of pottery. The Mexican woman with a baby at her back securely fastened in the reboso, which throws the infant's weight on the mother's shoulders, is to be compared with the Egyptian woman whose reboso covers her face while the child straddles her shoulders, holding to her head and leaving her hands unfettered as in the Mexican fashion. There are no Egyptian camels, but even more numerous donkeys, the patient burros. The Indian villages, either of adobe or bamboo, the thatched roofs and organ cactus fences, and alive with goats, donkeys, or snarling curs, are African in effect. There Aztecs picture writings resemble the Egyptian, the paper being made from the maguey instead of the papyrus. The Aztecs employed captives on great public works as in Egypt. Mexico thus has pyramids with much broader base than those of Egypt, though not nearly so high, and idols quite as ugly. Gold ornaments, beads, and other highly prized antiquities are found in the tombs as in Egypt."

GEOLOGY.

The geology of Mexico has been but imperfectly studied. In the higher ranges the prevailing formations are granite, which seem also to form the foundations of the plateaus, above which rise the traps, basalts, mineral-bearing porphyries, and more recent lavas. Hence, Lyell's theory that Mexico consisted originally of granite ranges with intervening valleys subsequently filled up to the level of the plateaus. by subterranean eruptions. Igneous rocks of every geologic epoch certainly form to a large extent the superstructure of the central plateau. But the Mexican table-land seems to consist mainly of metamorphic formations which have been partly upheaved, partly interpenetrated, and overlaid by igneous masses of all epochs, and which are chiefly. represented by shales, greywacke, greenstones, silicious schists, and especially unfossiliferous limestones. All these formations are alike remarkable for the abundance and variety of their metalliferous ores, such as silver, silver glance, copper, and gold. Gneiss and micaceous schists prevail in Oaxaca and on all the southern slopes facing both oceans. But the highest ranges are formed mainly of plutonic and volcanic rocks, such as granites, syenites, diorites, mineral-bearing trachytes, basalts, porphyries, obsidian, pearlstone, sulphur, pumice, lavas, tufa, and other recent volcanic discharges. Obsidian (itzli) was the chief material formerly used by the natives in the manufacture of their cutting implements, as shown by the quarries of the Cerro de las Navajas (Knife Cliff), near Real del Monte and Pachuca in the State of Hidalgo. Vast deposits of pumice and the purest sulphur are found at Huichapam and in many of the craters. But immeasurably the most valuable rocks are the argentiferous porphyries and schists of the central plateau and of Sinaloa, unless they are destined to be rivalled by the auriferous deposits of Sonora. Horizontal and stratified rocks, of extremely limited extent in the south, are largely developed in the northern states, and chalk becomes very prevalent towards the Rio Grande and Rio Gila valleys. To this chalk and to the sandstones are probably due the sandy plains which cover vast tracts in North Mexico, stretching thence far into New Mexico and Texas. Here the Bolson de Mapimi, a vast rocky wilderness inhabited until recently by wild tribes, occupies a space of perhaps 50,000 square miles in Coahuila and parts of the surrounding States.

None of the horizontal layers seem to be very rich in ores, which are mainly found in the metamorphic, palæozoic, and hypogene rocks of Durango, Chihuahua, and the south. Apart from Sinaloa and Sonora, which are now known to contain vast stores of the precious metals, nearly all the historical mines lie on the south central plateau at elevations of from 5500 to 9500 feet. A line drawn from the capital to Guanajuato, and thence northwards to the mining town of Guadalupe

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y Calvo of Chihuahua, and southwards to Oaxaca, thus cutting the main axis of upheaval at an angle of 45°, will intersect probably the richest known argentiferous region in the whole world.

Of other minerals the most important are copper, found in a pure state near the city of Guanajuato, and associated with gold in Chihuahua, Sonora, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacan, and elsewhere; iron in immense masses in Michoacan and Jalisco, and in Durango, where the Cerro del Mercado is a solid mountain of magnetic iron ore; lead associated with silver, chiefly in Oaxaca ; tin in Michoacan and Jalisco ; sulphur in many craters; platinum, recently found in Hidalgo; cinnabar, also recently found in Morelos and Guerrero; "steppe salt" in the sandy districts of the north; "bitter salt" at Tepeyac and many other places; coal at various points; bismuth in many parts; marble, alabaster, gypsum, and rock-salt in great abundance throughout the plateaus and the sierras.

MINING.

Mexico is, perhaps, the richest mining country in the world, and the production of silver-notwithstanding the imperfect methods and other drawbacks with which it has contended-represents over one-third of the product of the world, according to official statistics. Almost all the mountains of Mexico are of the metalliferous character, but those which seem richest in mining deposits are the western cordillera, extending from the State of Oaxaca to Sonora, a distance of about 1600 miles from northwest to southeast.

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Humboldt gave as his opinion that Mexico would be the treasure house of the world." Subsequent history has, in a great measure, confirmed the opinion of the great savant of his time. Still a more conservative authority has quite lately asserted that only one-tenth of the mining resources of Mexico is known. This last estimate, I am sure, is inside rather than outside of the facts. Mexico has always been considered the great silver producer, and, considering her area, and taking the century as a measure, she is the greatest silver producer of the world.

Silver. The central group of mines in the three mining districts of Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Catorce, in the States of Guanajuato, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, which have yielded more than half of all the silver heretofore found in Mexico, lies between 21° and 24° 30' N., within an area of about 13,000 square miles. Here the Veta Madre lode of Guanajuato alone produced $252,000,000 between 1556 and 1803.

In the beginning of this century Humboldt found two Guanajuato mines the famous "Conde de Valenciana" and the "Marques de Rayas "—producing annually 550,000 marks, 4,400,000 ounces, of silver,