TOWNS TERRITORY LOWER CALIFORNIA BOUNDARIES. 301 



habitants ; — and at Petic, forty leagues north north-east from Guya- 

 mas, in about 29° 20' of north latitude. The latter town, contain- 

 ing about 8,000 inhabitants, is the depot for goods imported through 

 the port of Guyamas which are designed for the northern districts 

 of Mexico. Besides these two important places, there are the towns 

 of San Miguel Horcasitas, with 2,500 inhabitants ; Arispe, with 

 3,000 ; San Jose de Guyamas 350 to 400 ; Bayoreca ; Onabas ; 

 Presidio de Buena Vista ; El Aguage ; Ures ; Babiacora ; Bana- 

 mitza ; Batuc ; Matape ; Oposura ; Presidio de Bavispe ; Presidio 

 de Fronteras ; San Ildefonso Cieneguilla ; Presidio de Santa Ger- 

 trudis del Altar ; Oquitoa ; Presidio de la Santa Cruz ; Presidio de 

 Tuscon ; and Presidio de Tubac. 



The mineral characteristics are similar to those of Sinaloa. 



THE TERRITORY OF LOWER CALIFORNIA. 



The Territory of Lower California is comprehended in that long 

 peninsular strip of land which extends from the present southern 

 boundary of the United States to Cape St. Lucas, and which is 

 washed on the east by the Gulf of California from the point where 

 the Rio Colorado debouches into it, and on the west by the waves 

 of the Pacific ocean. It lies between 32° 31' 59" 58'", and Cape 

 St. Lucas, in about 22° 45' of north latitude. 



The country, generally, is represented to be one of the most un- 

 attractive in the warm or temperate regions. The peninsula, 

 about 700 miles long, varies in breadth from thirty to one hundred 

 miles, its mean breadth being about fifty. The surface of this re- 

 gion is formed of an irregular chain of rocks, hills and mountains, 

 which run throughout the central portion of its whole length, 

 and some of which attain a height of nearly five thousand feet. 

 Amid these dreary ridges there are occasionally found a few shel- 

 tered spots which, though deluged by the torrents, have not been 

 swept clear of productive earth, and in these there is a fertile soil of 

 small extent, yielding a thin but nutritious grass. There are few 

 streams or springs ; trees of magnitude are scarce ; and the heavy 

 showers falling on the central rocky peaks and eminences are 

 drained on the east and west into the Pacific and Gulf of California 

 by the sloping sides of the peninsula, so as to bear with them into 

 the sea a large portion of cultivable soil. In the plains and in 

 most of the dry beds of rivers, water can be obtained by digging 

 wells only a few feet deep, and wherever irrigation has been adopted 



