118 Part II.. Chapter 1. 
while the Rio Segovia is the longest rising withing 5o miles of the Bay of 
Fonseca and flowing into the Caribbean Sea at Cape Gracias a Dios. 
San Salvador with the exception of a comparatively low alluvial coast 
plain, is a plateau 2020 feet in elevation diversified by a large number of vol- 
canic cones more recent than the Cordilleras themselves. The Rio Lempa rises 
in Honduras, crosses a corner of Honduras, enters San Salvador and draining . 
Laguna de Guija, it flows through a magnificient valley and reaches the Pacific. 
The low swampy Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua is broken by two lagoons 
and is fringed by cays and reefs. Parallel with the shore extends an almost 
continuous fringe of coral reefs and islands. The reefs are continually closing 
up the gaps by which they are broken, so that a new coast line will be 
formed when the lagoon behind is filled in. The coast in the past has been 
formed by the seaward growth of the land, by the combined action of coral 
polyps, and deposits of sediment washed. down by the streams. Impenetrable 
mangrove swamps äre found, which further contribute to this upbuilding and 
the water is deep close to the shore. The great geographic feature is the 
depression at a mean elevation of scarcely 100 feet above the sea occupied 
by two great lakes Nicaragua and Managua into which the drainage of the 
western provinces discharges and through the Rio San Juan to the Atlantic, 
This river pierces the main chain of the Cordilleras de los Andes composed of 
andesites, trachytes, greenstone and metalliferous porphyries which sweeps 
around the lake basin at a mean elevation of 4000 to 5000 feet (1279—1524 m). 
Two-thirds of Nicaragua is occupied by the terrace-lands of the north. Towards 
the low plains of the lakes, they end abruptly, and their escarped face appears 
as a great mountain wall with deep valleys cut through it. Towards the north, 
they merge gradually with the mountains and plateaus of Honduras. Towards 
the east, they slope down to the Atlantic coast, with a number of spurs Iying 
between the rivers. Llanos, such as Jinotega, Esteli and Ocotal, have an 
average height of 3000 feet. The lacustrine depression is traversed through- 
out its entire length by a series of isolated volcanic cones. North of the lakes 
the chain takes the name of Maribios comprising Coseguina (3835, 2777 feet), 
El Viejo, 6000 (6266, 5839) feet, Santa Clara (4506), Telica (3409), Axusco and 
Momotombo 7000 (6121, 4128) feet and Corongo 9908 feet. Two twin peaks 
in Lake Nicaragua are named respectively Ometepec, 4100 feet, and Madera, 
4190 feet. Barren lava fields (malpais) extend for miles in that portion of 
Nicaragua between the lakes and the Pacific Ocean, where the Coast Range 
comprising the mountains of Managua, Granada and Rivas seldom rising above 
2000 feet, merges northwards in the plains of Conejo and Leon and forms 
a continuation of the system in Salvador and Costa Rica. The Pacific coast 
of Nicaragua has no rivers of any size, while Lake Nicaragua, ı10 miles long 
and 40 broad, is drained by the 2 San Juan, ı28 miles (206 km) long. 
Several RER streams in the little known region of rugged plateaus and 
savannas between the lacustrine depression and the Mosquito coast drain east- 
ward to the Atlantic. 
