386 Guatemala Forests. 
(c) The Gulf region, or part of the great plain entering north- 
ward from the Sierra Madre, or Cuchumatanes Mountains to the 
Gulf of Mexico, about 150 miles square, including (1) the basin 
of the river Neumacinta and its four great affluents, the rivers 
San Pedro, Lacantun, Chixoy and Pasion, and the narrow valleys 
of their upper branches, covering some 16,000 square miles; (2) 
the valleys of the Lagartero and Salegná rivers, 250 square miles; 
and (3) the valley of the Cuilco River, 50 square miles, the last 
three rivers being the upper affluents of the Chiapas River, all 
these regions together making 24,000 square miles of tierra caliente, 
or more than one-half the entire country. 
Secondly: A great mountain system running nearly east and 
west from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Gulf of Honduras 
occupies the middle of Guatemala between the Pacific and the Gulf 
plains, in a succession of axes of elevation, vaults and escarp- 
ments, overlapping or arranged en echelon. In some ten places 
these mountains attain elevations of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, and 
elevations 8000 to 9000 feet are numerous. Between these are 
the many deep erosion valleys, pre-tertiary, which, in the eastern 
and northern parts of the country, are in the low, hot lands, but in 
the western and southern parts are filled in with volcanic debris, 
some trachyte, but mostly ashes, forming extensive and curiously 
level plains, surrounded by high mountains. These ash plains are 
from 5000 to 7000 feet above the sea, and form the larger part of 
the temperate region, or tierra templada, and are the sites of most 
of the cities and large towns, the seat of most of the population, 
and mostly cleared and cultivated, now and since remote times, aS 
shown by ancient remains. These plains are often traversed by 
impassable barrancos, or ravines with vertical sides eroded through 
the ash beds since Pliocene times, by small swift rivers, often to 
depths of 300 or 400 feet. 
The temperate regions, from 3000 to 9000 feet above the sea, 
cover about 15,000 square miles, or one-third of the whole 
surface of the Republic. | 
Thirdly: We have the remaining one-tenth of the country, OF 
4000 square miles, rising above 9000 feet, and in at least two 
table lands, those of Ixchignan and Chémal, extensive table lands 
at 11,000 and 11,500 feet, and which are traversed by ridges 1000 
feet higher, and finally, there are six volcanic cones attaming — 
. from 13,000 to 14,000 feet elevation. 
