INTRODUCTION. 



The continuation of the main mountain range of North America, in passing 

 through Nicaragua, divides the republic into two nearly equal sectio'ns. Bending 

 more to the south in Costa Rica, and branching out, it encloses the elevated 

 table lands of San Jose and Cartago. These mountains attain a height of 3,000 

 to 4,000 feet in Nicaragua, and in Costa Rica reach an extreme altitude of 10,850 

 feet in the volcano of Cartago.* The Atlantic slope of the Cordillera, which 

 condenses the moisture of the trade wind, is clothed with dense vegetation, while 

 on the Pacific side the climate is less damp, and the wet and dry seasons are well 

 defined. 



South of the bay of Realejo a chain of hills appears and follows the coast 

 in a general southwest direction to Capo Blanco, Costa Rica. The elevation 

 does not anywhere exceed 2,000 feet. 



Between the two mountain ridges lies a plain, from the gulf of Fonseca to 

 the Nicaragua lake basin, which, in turn, extends to the valley of the Rio Frio. 

 A southwest extension of the plain, between the volcano Orosi and the ocean, 

 rises into a table land of a thousand feet elevation,f on which are the head-waters 

 of the Sapoa and Tempisque rivers. The former empties into Lake Nicaragua, 

 and the latter into the head of the gulf of Nicoya. 



The middle section of this long valley, the Nicaragua lake basin, contains 

 the two great lakes of Managua and Nicaragua. They seem originally to have 

 formed a portion of a bay of the Pacific, and, later, to have been cut off from the 

 ocean by upheaval of the land south of Fonseca. The surplus water of Lake 

 Nicaragua is discharged by the San Juan River into the Atlantic, the river 

 finding its way in a succession of rapids through the main range of mountains. 



A series of volcanoes leaves the Cordillera at its bend in Costa Rica, and 

 keeps an almost direct line from Orosi to Fonseca. The peaks rise at intervals 

 along the lake and plain, reaching an altitude of 6,266 feet in El Viejo,J the 

 highest in the Nicaragua section. 



* Nicaragua. P. Levy, pp. 76, 80. 



f Reports of Explorations and Surveys for the Location of a Ship Canal between the Atlantic and Pacific 

 Oceans, through Nicaragua, 1872-'73. Washington, 1874. 

 J Nicaragua. P. Levy, p. 84. 



