LOWER CALIFORNIA 117 



the coast to the summits, it may be said that all the 

 agricultural produce of the earth can be grown in one 

 or the other of these belts of vegetation ; from rice, 

 cotton, sugar-cane, oil-, and coco-palms through coffee 

 and maize to wheat, oats, and potatoes. The most 

 important products, however, are coffee and maize, while 

 cattle-breeding is rapidly increasing. Timber is actively 

 exploited in some parts of the Sierra Madre. 



The Mexican Plateau — Anahuac. From the Rio 

 Grande southwards, the Mexican plateau rises and con- 

 tracts gradually, bordered on both sides by a jagged 

 rim of high mountains and broken by numberless short 

 ranges. Extremely dry in the north, it enjoys towards 

 the south a well-marked and fairly regular summer 

 rainfall. Lower and broader, the hot plains of the north 

 still belong to the margin of tropical semi-deserts. 

 They stand intermediate between the arid lands beyond 

 the Rio Grande and those of the Gila, and seem to com- 

 bine the features of both ; cacti, agaves, and mesquites 

 are still predominant. Vast, dreary areas are covered witli 

 a modified sage-brush of low, woody, greyish bushes, 

 the most remarkable of which is the rubber bush or 

 guayule. The inland drainage has developed broad 

 alkaline swamps or bolsons accompanied, as usual, by 

 salt -bushes and salt-pastures. Thanks, however, to the 

 mountains, water-sources are numerous, and suffice to 

 supply the extensive cattle-ranches and the industrial 

 towns. 



The relief becomes more varied and the rainfall more 

 regular and abundant towards the south and, accord- 

 ingly, the aspect of the vegetation is more diversified. 

 This portion of the plateau, which rises to 6,000 and 

 7,000 feet above sea-level, has mild but dry winters 

 and warm and moderately rainy summers. With this 



