KXl'I.nUATlMNS ANI) I MM >\ IIIMKS IN 1H?0. 



The lii^'lu-ft Kiiiiunits in Colorado exceed 13,000 

 ;nl those of the High Sierras approach 

 iVi-t. 



III. M i: \ ico has presented no explorations of 

 importance the past year, the country having 

 in too unsettled a state to admit of any 

 iiic explorations. The attempted settle- 

 in, -lit of the peninsula of Lower Calif* >nii:i 

 iimK T the auspices of an American company 

 has proved an almost entire failure, ana the 

 company has been severely denounced for al- 

 inisrepresentations. It is very possible 

 that the emigrants thither may have expected 

 greater advantages than they received, and that 

 the climate and productiveness of the soil may 

 IKUV been painted in more glowing colors than 

 proved to be just ; but any emigrant who con- 

 sented to go to that mountainous, volcanic, and 

 arid region, and banish himself from all civil- 

 ized society, must, if he knew the character of 

 the country to which he was removing, have 

 been sadly in want of a retired and quiet home. 

 CENTRAL AMERICA. In this whole region 

 there has been active exploration going on 

 throughout the entire year, and several volumes 

 and reports of previous explorations have been 

 published. Beginning with the Republic of Gua- 

 temala, which adjoins Mexico, we have just at 

 the close of the year a very spirited translation, 

 by Mrs. E. G. Squier, of Morelet's " Travels in 

 Central America," which were mostly confined 

 to the Republic of Guatemala and to Cam- 

 peachy. M. Arthur Morelet is a French gentle- 

 man of fortune and of remarkable attainments 

 in the physical sciences, who, some twenty- 

 four years since undertook to explore the in- 

 terior of Guatemala, at his own expense, but 

 under the general patronage of the Institute of 

 France. His journeyings occupied nearly three 

 years, during which he penetrated into the 

 interior of Guatemala, and explored more 

 fully than any white man had done, at least in 

 modern times, the course and navigability of 

 the great river of that republic, the Usuma- 

 sinta, a river as large as the Red River of 

 Louisiana, and in many respects similar to it. 

 He collected a great number of choice speci- 

 mens of the plants, minerals, animals, insects, 

 and birds of the country, which he arranged 

 scientifically, and presented to the Museum of 

 Paris, and the narrative of his travels he caused 

 to be privately printed, and distributed a few 

 copies among his nearest friends, but declined 

 to publish it. It is this narrative, which gives 

 by far the most full and complete account of the 

 geography of Guatemala, which Mr. Squier has 

 obtained his consent to have translated and 

 published in the United States, and which Mrs. 

 Squier has rendered into most admirable Eng- 

 lish. It is a valuable contribution to American 

 geographical science, as valuable as any of the 

 works on that region which have yet appeared, 

 while it occupies for the most part entirely 

 new. ground. The Spanish-American states 

 change but little, in a score of years, either 

 physically or politically; the ever-recurring 



revolutions !.-:i\ < them much as they flnd them, 

 line! Nature, though prolific in iN tropic*! vege- 

 t. -itii.il, does not change materially the aspect 

 of mountain, river, or plain, except when some 

 new volcano upheaves a savanna, as at Jorullo, 

 or reduces by its internal fires the height of 

 sdiiu- mountain-punk. We may thus accept 

 Mr. Morelet's deHcriptions of the physical ge- 

 ography of Guatemala as being, in the nin'm, 

 as true to-day as when they were written, and 

 his word-pictures of the inhabitants are too 

 evidently drawn from the life to be doubted. 



The adjacent Republic of Ilundurat has 

 come into prominence within the past two or 

 throe years from the construction of a railway 

 across it from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to be 

 completed in 1872, which will, it is said, reduce 

 the time for a trip by sea, from New York to 

 San Francisco via, the Honduras Railway, to 

 thirteen, or, at the most, fourteen and a half 

 days. This is, indeed, twice as long as by rail- 

 way, but the route is to many travellers more 

 pleasant. That, portion of Mr. E. G. Sqnier's 

 very able work on the states of Central Amer- 

 ica which related to Honduras has been re- 

 printed in London, with additions by the au- 

 thor, bringing it down to the present time, for 

 circulation, to promote the interests of this 

 great enterprise. It is the testimony of the 

 best-educated citizens of Honduras that no 

 work published is so full and accurate in re- 

 gard to the geography of that republic. The 

 railway in course of construction is 200 miles 

 in length, and the route to San Francisco is 

 4,160 miles. It is a part of the plan, however, 

 to have the steamships, on the Atlantic side, 

 leave and return to Charlotte Harbor, on the 

 west coast of Florida, which is in direct com- 

 munication with Charleston, Norfolk, Balti- 

 more, Philadelphia, and New York, by rail, 

 and the voyage by sea will thus be shortened 

 to about 2,900 miles, or little more than the 

 distance from New York to Southampton. 

 Communication with South American, Sand- 

 wich Islands, and Australian ports, from Fon- 

 seca, the port on the Pacific, will be as speedy 

 and desirable as from Panama, while the Hon- 

 duras isthmus is less affected by malaria than 

 that of Panama. As a route for heavy freight 

 and second-class passengers, this Honduras 

 Interoceanic Railway must prove superior 

 both to the Pacific Railway and the Panama 

 route. 



We have purposely reserved to this place 

 the consideration of the different routes and 

 plans for interoceanio communication which 

 within the year have assumed new promi- 

 nence (although one of them passes across 

 Mexican territory), because it was more con- 

 venient to consider them all together. With 

 the completion of the Pacific Railway, there 

 arose a conviction that, while, for first-class 

 passengers, the more valuable articles of freight, 

 those which in small bulk comprised large 

 values, for the Government business and trans- 

 portation, the shipments of the precious metals, 



