﻿ASBESTOS AND MANGANESE DEPOSITS. 147 



THE AREA AND PEOPLE. 



The Province of Iloeos Norte is a wedge-shaped tract, with the point 

 of the wedge to the south, occupying the extreme northwestern corner 

 of Luzon. It is bounded on the west by the China Sea, on the north 

 by Formosa Straits, on the east by the Caraballo del Norte range and 

 the Province of Cagayan, and on the south by the Province of Iloeos 

 Sur and Abra. 



The people are called Ilocanos and are Christianized, although some 

 Igorots and Apayaos (Tingianes) inhabit a narrow tract along the slopes 

 of the eastern mountain rim of the province. The Ilocanos have much 

 to commend them, they being in the writer's opinion, together with the 

 Bicols, the most industrious and peaceable native people of the Archi- 

 pelago. Iloeos Norte, at the time of the census, ranked fifth in amount of 

 live stock; it averaged over 10 kilograms of rice (palay — Ilocano name) 

 per hectare, being among the first of the producing provinces; it is 

 least in the number of paupers, and has very few convicts. At the time 

 of the taking of the census the schools were not well under way, but to- 

 day they are crowded and in a flourishing condition. Eice culture is by 

 far the greatest industry of the province, but the cultivation of mague) r , 

 which is said to make nearly as good rope as abaca fiber, is a growing 

 industry. 



An interesting feature of many of the towns is the architecture of the 

 churches and towers ; the former having strikingly large buttresses ; 

 the towers, of which the bell tower in Laoag is typical, are of a distinctly 

 Moorish type, suggesting that the designers came from the Moorish prov- 

 inces of Spain. 



GEOGRAPHY — PHYSICAL. 

 TOPOGRAPHY. 



I shall treat of this topic in three sections as I did in the case of Cebu, 

 dividing the province into three physiographic parts, the plains, the 

 uplands, and the cordillera. Of the last named I shall say practically 

 nothing, as my observations did not extend sufficiently far to the east. 

 Suffice it to say that the great backbone of Luzon, that which runs through 

 the rich mineral Provinces of Benguet and Lepanto-Bontoc, continues 

 high and unconquered almost to the extreme northern point of the 

 Island. Not until a point just east of Bangui is reached is it seen to 

 dip and decline to the sea. At this point there must be a quite precip- 

 itous drop of nearly a thousand feet; this can plainly be seen by fol- 

 lowing the profile. From this drop out to the end of Punta Dialao, the 

 sky line is so very even as strongly to suggest a great marine terrace. 



