GUATEMA.LA. 



207 



Physical Features. 



In its main outlines tlie relief of Guatemala is extremely simple. The more 

 elevated part of the plateau skirts the Pacific at a mean distance of 50 or 60 

 miles from the sea, and presents in this direction its more precipitous but also its 

 more regular escarpments. The slope facing the Atlantic, although much longer 

 and more gentle, is more difficult to traverse, owing to its abrupt ravines and the 

 deep gorges excavated by the running waters. The Guatemalan range does not 

 terminate in a sharp crest, but, on the contrary, is rounded off towards the summit, 

 where it broadens out in granitic plateaux of various extent, forming, so to say, 

 so many mesas, or " tables," somewhat analogous to those of Anahuac. The great 

 irregularity of the sierra is due to the volcanoes, which have risen above these 



Fig. 88.— Teend of the Guate-malan Ranges. 

 Scale 1 : 4.5bO,(iCC. 



West oF Gi-eenwch 



mountains but which are not disposed iu a line with the sierra itself. Towards 

 the frontier of Chiapas and in the Altos, or uplands, of Quezaltenango, the great 

 eruptive cones lie exactly on the upper edge of the plateau, their slopes merging 

 in the escarpments of the pedestal on which they rest. But farther on, that is, 

 in the direction of Salvador, the axis of the volcanoes running almost due south- 

 east ceases to coincide with that of the sierra, which trends nioi-e to the north, 

 while the lofty pyramids rise midway on the slope of the range, where they are 

 enclosed by a rampart of ravines. But to the traveller coasting along the Guate- 

 malan seaboard, the peaks which he sees rising at intervals above the land horizon 

 seem to shoot up from the very crest of the mountains. 



The elevation of the escarpments rising above the southern shores of Guatemala 

 falls gradually from the frontiers of Chiapas south-eastwards in the direction of 

 Salvador. In the Altoc; or " Heights," as the western part of the state is called, 



