

THE HISTORIC AIvAMO: SAN ANTONIO 



This beautiful old building,^ built as a mission by the Franciscans in 1719, was held as a 

 fort in 1836 by a gallant little band of Texans, who, after holding off the Mexican army for 

 many days, were finally massacred (see page 1335). 



east, for instance, there is a long journey 

 through low lands, with subtropical vege- 

 tation and wide fields of cotton and 

 sugar-cane ; then comes a gradual ascent 

 into great rolling prairies and a region of 

 semi-arid character, which leads to the 

 high plateaus and lofty ridges of the 

 western part of the State. 



The distance from east to west is 740 

 miles and from north to south 760 miles, 

 or from latitude 26° to 365^° and longi- 

 tude 93° to 107°. The area is 265,896 

 square miles, or 7.2 per cent of that of 

 the United States. Diagonal distances 

 across the State are greater : the distance 

 from Point Isabel, south of Brownsville, 

 to Texline, for instance, being 1,107 

 miles, or more than from Chicago to New 

 York. 



Texas extends from the Gulf of Mexico 

 half way across the continent toward the 

 Pacific Ocean, and so far north and south 

 as to comprise a broad belt of the south- 

 ern part of the temperate zone in one di- 



rection and a wide area of semi-tropical 

 region in the other. 



To the west it reaches far into the cen- 

 tral semi-arid province of the so-called 

 American Desert, and yet has within its 

 eastern confines a broad strip of the Gulf 

 coast plain and Mississippi embayment. 

 The Rio Grande is its southwestern 

 boundary for nearly 800 miles, and the 

 Gulf of Mexico has 400 miles of its shore- 

 line in Texas. 



i^oR NiNi: yi:ars tkxas was an 



INDEPENDENT REPUBI.IC 



No State has had a more remarkable 

 history than Texas, though many of the 

 most notable events were in the distant 

 past. The flags of three foreign pow- 

 ers — France, Spain, and Mexico — have 

 floated over her, and for nine years she 

 was an independent republic, with minis- 

 ters to foreign courts as well as to Wash- 

 ington. 



The first Europeans to visit Texas 



1331 



