732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ferior in sublimity to Tacoma in Washington Territory, the entire 

 elevation of which last (14,300 feet) can, in some places, be taken in 

 at a single glance from the sea-level and a water-foreground. The 

 comparatively narrow and gently sloping strip of land which the 

 traveler thus roaches on the Atlantic side in journeying from Mexico 

 to Vera Cruz extends from the base of the great plateau to the ocean, 

 and, with its counterpart on the Pacific side, constitutes in the main 

 the so-called " Tierras Calientes'" (hot lands), or the tropical part of 

 Mexico. The average width of these coast-lands on the Atlantic is 

 about sixty miles, while on the Pacific it varies from forty to seventy 

 miles. 



Considered as a whole, the geographical configuration and posi- 

 tion of Mexico have been compared to an immense cornucopia, with its 

 mouth turned toward the United States and its concave side on the 

 Atlantic ; having an extreme length of about 2,000 miles, and a vary- 

 ing width of from 1,000 to 130 miles. Its territorial area is 761,791 

 square miles, or a little larger than that part of the United States, east 

 of the Mississippi River, exclusive of the States of Wisconsin and 

 Mississippi ; and this cornucopia in turn, as has been before intimated, 

 consists of an immense table-land, nine tenths of which have an average 

 elevation of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Such an elevation in the lati- 

 tude of 42° (Boston or New York) would have given the country an 

 almost Arctic character ; but under the Tropic of Cancer, or in latitudes 

 18° to 25° north, the climate at these high elevations is almost that of 

 perpetual spring. At these high elevations of the Mexican plateau 

 furthermore, the atmosphere is so lacking in moisture, that meat, 

 bread, or cheese, never molds or putrefies, but only spoils by drying 

 up. Perspii-ation, even when walking briskly in the middle of the 

 day, does not gather or remain upon the forehead or other exposed 

 portions of the body ; and it is only through this peculiarity of the 

 atmosphere that the city of Mexico, with its large population, and its 

 soil recking with filth through lack of any good and sufficient drain- 

 age, has not long ago been desolated with pestilence. As it is, the 

 death-rate of the city is reported to be larger than at almost any of 

 the great centers of the world's population from which sanitary sci- 

 ence has been enabled to obtain data. 



The surface of this great Mexican plateau, or table-land, although 

 embracing extensive areas of comparatively level surface, which are 

 often deserts, is nevertheless largely broken up by ranges of mountains, 

 or detached peaks — some of which, like Popocatepetl, Orizaba, and 

 Toluca, rise to great elevations — a circumstance which it is important 

 to remember, and will be again referred to, in considering the possible 

 future material development of the country. 



Again, if we except certain navigable channels which make up for 

 short distances from the sea into the low, narrow strips of coast-lands, 

 there is not a navigable river in all Mexico ; or, indeed, any stream, 



