THE GREATEST VOLCANOES OF MEXICO 



741 



dance, but it is unsurveyecl, it is inac- 

 cessible for lack of roads, and covered 

 with a dense forest growth. 



The Liberians know too little about 

 their own country and understand too 

 little how to develop its resources to be 

 able to render any assistance to immi- 

 grants. A systematic study of the re- 

 sources of the country ; a knowledge of 

 its products and the best methods of 

 gathering them ; a knowledge of the pos- 

 sibilities of its land and how it can best 

 be brought under cultivation ; the con- 

 struction of at least one good road into 

 the interior, where better lands and more 

 salubrious climate for man and beast are 

 found — all these are necessary before 

 Liberia can begin to offer inducements 

 to immigrants. Liberia has neither the 

 means nor the knowledge to enable her 

 to prosecute such an effective study of 

 her own country. No greater service 

 could be rendered than to undertake for 

 her such a study of her country as would 

 enable Liberia to find herself economic- 

 ally, to enter into her own heritage, and 

 to open hospitable doors to desirable im- 

 migrants from the United States. 



Among its recommendations, the com- 

 mission urges that the United States 

 should establish and maintain a research 

 station in Liberia. 



The object of such station should be 

 the scientific research of the natural 



phenomena of the country, the develop- 

 ment and preservation of its sources of 

 wealth, the effect of climate on health, 

 and the causes, treatment, and cure of 

 tropical diseases. 



The LTnited States has already in its 

 brief career in the tropics made re- 

 searches and discoveries which have 

 enriched the world's knowledge of tropi- 

 cal conditions. It is to be anticipated 

 that were a well equipped station estab- 

 lished in Liberia, there would be further 

 fruits of research which would redound 

 to the credit of the United States. It 

 would afford to the American student an 

 opportunity for study of the natural 

 products of the continent of Africa in 

 one of its least explored and probably 

 richest parts. 



Nor is it to be overlooked that such 

 a station would in a few years acquire a 

 vast store of information for the instruc- 

 tion and direction of immigrants from 

 the United States. Lender favorable con- 

 ditions Liberia can offer great advan- 

 tages to our negro fellow-citizens. Until, 

 however, the necessary information re- 

 garding the country can be placed before 

 would-be immigrants in some systematic 

 and effective way, attempts on the part 

 of American immigrants to make a home 

 in Africa must be attended with great 

 ]:)robability of disaster. 



THE GREATEST VOLCANOES OF MEXICO 



With Text by Mr A. Melgareio, of Mexico City, and Photographs by S. L. Wonson, 



of Boston 



POPOCATEPETL, the "Smoking 

 Mountain" of the Aztecs, has only 

 one superior in height on the North 

 x\merican continent — Mount McKinley, 

 in Alaska — and only one rival. Mount 

 Orizaba. In beauty it has few equals on 

 earth. The Alps, the Himalayas, the 

 Andes, and other of the great ranges 

 present, without doubt, peaks of great 

 beauty or peculiar formation, but few 

 show the charming contrast of landscape 



peculiar to Popo, as the mountain is 

 known locally. Its w^ell-wooded slopes 

 and foothills, the cultivated plains at its 

 feet, with their patches of mellow green 

 and yellow, its ravines and can3'ons and 

 the lakes below are like a frame to its 

 immense cone of reddish rocks, black 

 sands, and its beautiful cap of white. 

 The many towns and ranches around it 

 and the railroads running at its base give 

 it a peculiar "homelike" look, much dif- 



