The National Geographic Magazine 



and is even now undergoing the ravages 

 of revolutionary movements. Ecuador 

 has been the scene of many revolutions 

 and the displacement of one president 

 by another through armed force. Peru 

 has suffered by a foreign war, whereby 

 the most valuable of its territories were 

 torn away, and one revolution has fol- 

 lowed another in quick succession, with 

 changes of rulers. Chile, once the most 

 conservative and prosperous of the South 

 American countries, has carried on an 

 expensive foreign war, has undergone a 

 blood)' and exhaustive revolution, and, 

 because of its hostile attitude to its 

 neighbors, has been compelled to main- 

 tain a large army and costly navy. 

 Bolivia, shut out from the sea by a 

 jealous neighbor, has been in frequent 

 turmoil and political disorder. The 

 Argentine Republic, though greatly 

 favored by nature and by progressive 

 rulers, has not been free from revolu- 

 tionary movements, and has undergone 

 a serious financial disaster, which has 

 greatly paralj-zed its industries. Brazil, 

 by a conspirac)' in the army, expelled 

 the emperor and established a republic; 

 but that did not bring it peace, for the 

 new government has had to contend 

 with successive attempts at revolution. 

 The history of Venezuela in the past 

 twenty-five years has been one of re- 

 peated revolutions and changes of gov- 

 ernment. 



From this hasty sketch of the other 

 nations of the American hemisphere to 

 the south, in contrast with Mexico, the 

 brilliancy and the beneficence of the ad- 

 ministration of President Diaz is made 

 apparent. In a recent inaugural address 

 to Congress, on again being installed as 

 President, he referred to the achieve- 

 ments of Mexico in the past twenty-five 

 years, and modestly stated that in it 

 there were no brilliant deeds to chronicle. 

 From that notable address I make this 

 extract : 



' ' If it were true that a peaceful and 

 laborious people have no history, the 



administrative period I am about to re- 

 view would almost be devoid of history. 

 But, on the contrary, those nations that 

 deserve to be called happy in the only 

 intelligible sense of the word, far from 

 being without a history, have a very 

 glorious and interesting one, if besides 

 being peaceful and laborious they are 

 also progressive. 



' ' That history is the history of their 

 progress, their achievements, their grow- 

 ing prosperity, of the improvements of 

 every kind which the}' have intro- 

 duced — a history which, in this modern 

 age and the present constitution of civ- 

 ilized societies, is as interesting as that 

 of their past and just as deserving of 

 attention." 



DRAINAGE OF THE VALLEY OF 

 MEXICO 



Next in importance of a geographic 

 character to the vast railwa5' system, 

 which has done so much to transform 

 the face of the country and the habits 

 of the people, is the great drainage canal 

 of the Valley of Mexico and its adjunct 

 improvements. As is well known, the 

 City of Mexico is situated in the bot- 

 tom of a vallej' entirely surrounded by 

 mountains, with a series of lakes on the 

 southeast and northwest, draining into 

 a salt-water lake which has no outlet, 

 on the shores of which this most ancient 

 city of America was located. Owing to 

 its location, the capital was constantly 

 exposed to overflows, and from time to 

 time it has been visited by most de- 

 structive inundations. Besides, on ac- 

 count of the necessarily imperfect sew- 

 age system, the death rate of the city 

 has always been very high. 



For six hundred years, from the time 

 of the ancient Aztec kings, the artificial 

 drainage of the waters of the valley has 

 been the vexed problem of each succeed- 

 ing government. The Spanish viceroj^s 

 exhausted the engineering science of 

 their epochs, spent hundreds of millions 



