BOOK and from thence it traverses New Mexico, and joins the LXXXIII. mountains of Las Grullas, and the Sierra Verde. This mountainous country, situated under the fortieth degree of latitude, was examined, in 1777, by the Fathers Escalaste and Fond. It gives rise to the Rio-Gila, the sources of which approach those of the Rio-del-Norte. It is the crest of this central branch of the Sierra-Madre, which divides the waters between the Great Ocean and the sea of the Antilles. It is this of which Fiedler and the intrepid Mackenzie examined the continuation, under the 50° and 55° of north latitude.* The map of Don Alzate gives the peculiar name of the Sierra dos Pedernales, or the Mountain of Gun-Flints, to one part of the Sierra de Mimbre, a circumstance which seems to indicate a resemblance between the rocks of this chain and those of the Rocky Mountains.

Granitic rocks.

The granite, which here appears to form, as it does everywhere else, the lowest stratum, appears at the surface in the little chain that borders the Pacific Ocean, and which, on the side of Acapulco, is separated from the mass of high country by the valley of Peregrino. The beautiful port of Acapulco is excavated, by the hand of nature, in granitic rocks. The same rock forms the mountains of Mixteca and of Zapateca, in the intendency of Oaxaca. The central plateau, or Anahuac, appears like Porphyritic an enormous dike of porphyritic rocks, distinguished from those of Europe by the constant presence of hornblend, and by the absence of quartz. They contain immense deposits of gold and silver. Basalt, amygdaloid, trap, gypsum, and the limestone of Jura, form the predominant rocks. The strata succeed each other here in the same order as in Europe, except that syenite alternates with serpentine. The secondary rocks equally resemble those of

rocks.

*In the Voyage à la Californie, of Chappe d'Auteroche.

+ Description of the road from Vera-Cruz to Acapulco, in the Atlas of the Essay on Mexico.

A. de Humboldt, Mexico, t. XI. p. 318.

Primitive limestone.

LXXXIII,

our European countries; but, hitherto, no considerable BOOK beds of rock-salt or of coal have been discovered in the plateau of Mexico, while, on the contrary, these substances, espécially the former, appear to exist in great abundance to the north of the Gulf of California, near the Lake Timpanogos.*

The porphyry of the Sierra de Santa Rosa appears in Singular gigantic masses, which assume extraordinary shapes, imi- the rocks. shape of tating the appearance of ruined walls and bastions. The masses that appear to have been thus hewn with the pick-axe and elevated 1000 or 1300 feet, are called in the country buffa. Enormous balls, contained in concentric beds, rest on isolated rocks. These porphyries give the environs of the town of Guanaxuato a singularly romantic aspect. The porphyritic rock of Mamancheta, known in the country by the name of los Organos de Actopan, rises to view in the horizon like an old tower, of which the shattered base has become narrower than the summit. The porphyritic traps in columns, which terminate the mountain of Jacal and Oyamel, are crowned with pine trees and oak, which add a certain picturesque gracefulness to this imposing sight. It is from these mountains that the ancient Mexicans obtained the Itzli or Obsidian, of which they formed their cutting instruments.

The Cofre de Perote is a porphyritic mountain, elevated 13,633 feet above the level of the sea, and represents an ancient sarcophagus, surmounted by a pyramid at one of its extremities. The basalts of La Regla, of which the prismatic columns, a hundred feet in height, have their central parts harder than the rest, form the native decorations of a very beautiful cascade.

account of

The inhabitants of Mexico scarcely look upon volcanoes Detailed as a curiosity, so familiar are they with the effects of these the volcacolossal furnaces. Almost all the summits of the American noes.

A. de Humboldt, Mexico, t. IV. p. 134.

Id. ibid. Views and Monuments, pl. LXIV. 325 English feet high.

t Id. ibid. p. LXV.

Id. ibid. pl. XXXIV.

Id. ibid. p. 123.

Cordilleras contain craters. That of Mount Popoca is said LXXXIII. to be half a league in circumference; but, at present, it is inaccessible. The Orizaba is also a volcano, from which, in 1545, an eruption took place, and continued burning for twenty years. This mountain is called by the Indians Citlal-Tepet! or the Starry Mountain, on account of the luminous exhalations which rise from its crater, and play round its summit, which is covered with eternal snow. The sides of these colossal cones, adorned with magnificent forests of cedar and pine, are no longer overwhelmed by eruptions, nor furrowed by torrents of burning lava. It even appears that currents of lava, properly so called, do not abound in Mexico. Nevertheless, in 1759, the plains of Jorullo, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, formed the scene of one of the most tremendous catastrophes that the surface of the globe has ever experienced. In one single night, there issued from the earth a volcano of 1494 feet in height, surrounded by more than 2000 apertures, which still continue smoking to the present day. MM. Humboldt and Bonpland descended into the burning crater of the great volcano, no less than 258 feet in perpendicular depth, leaping over crevices which exhaled sulphuretted hydrogen in a state of inflammation. After many dangers, on account of the fragility of the basaltic and syenitic lava, they almost reached the bottom of the crater, where the air was, in an extraordinary degree, surcharged with carbonic acid.

The granitic mountains of Oaxaca do not contain any known volcano; but, more to the south, Guatimala was kept in a state of constant alarm by the vicinity of two mountains, one of which vomited fire, and the other water, and ended at last by swallowing up this great city.*

The volcanoes continue as far as Nicaragua. Near this city is that of Momantombo. The Omo-Tepetl shoots up its burning peak from the bosom of the lake of Nicaragua. Other volcanic mountains border the Gulphs of the Pacific Ocean. The province of Costa Rica likewise contains vol

*Lorenzana, cited in the Essay on Mexico, t. i. p. 171.

canoes; and, amongst others, that of Varu, situated in the BOOK chain called Boruca.

We will not terminate this sketch of the American mountains, without speaking of its celebrated mines of gold and silver, of which the annual produce, even in ordinary times, amounts to fully 22,000,000 piastres, or 4,583,333 pounds sterling.* The gold, which forms only one twenty-second part of the whole, is found in little straw-like fragments and grains, in the alluvial lands of Sonora. and Pimeria Alta. It also exists in veins, in the mountains of gneiss and micaceous schistus of the province of Oaxaca. The silver appears to affect the plateau of Anahuac, and of Mechoacan. The mine of Batopilas, in New Biscay, the most northerly that has yet been explored, has afforded the greatest quantity of native silver, while, in the others, the metal is extracted from the minerals which they call meagre, such as red, black, muriated, and sulphuretted silver; or, from lead. The want of mercury, which is procured from China and Austria, is the only thing that checks the spirit of mining. The mines already known, are far from giving any indication of being exhausted. One Spaniard affirms that, in the province of Texas, all the stones contain silver.†

LXXXIII.

Mines.

of the Mex

The great elevation at which nature has deposited her Particular immense metallic riches in New Spain, is a source of re- advantage markable advantage to the progress of national industry. ican mines. In Peru, the most considerable mines of silver are found at an immense height, very near the limit of eternal snow. In order to explore these mines, men, provisions, and cattle, must be brought from a distance. Towns, situated on elevated plains, where water freezes during the whole year, and where trees no longer grow, are not calculated to form a very attractive habitation. Nothing but the hope of acquiring riches could induce any man possessed of personal

* According to the piastre of 4/2 employed by Humboldt, and copied here. Pol. Ess. in lib. II. chap. IX. and in vol. II. p. 527. Engl. Trans.-The Translator of Humboldt's Essay, concerned in the Morning Chronicle; also Translator of Von Buch, and Memoirs of Golsoni. Mr. Black makes it 4/44; also Anderson, Comm. Dict. p. 472.

Viagero Universal, t. XXV. p. 249.

LXXXIII.

BOOK liberty, to abandon the delicious climate of the valleys, and voluntarily isolate himself on the summit of the Andes. In Mexico, on the contrary, the richest mines of silver, such as those of Guanaxuato, Zacatecas, Tasco, and Real del Monte, are found at the medium elevation of from 5580 to 6562 feet. There, the mines are surrounded by cultivated land, towns, and villages; while forests crown the neighbouring heights; every thing, in short, facilitates the exploring of their subterraneous riches.

Rivers. In the midst of the numerous mountains which nature has Deficiency of water granted to New Spain, it suffers, in general, like the parent country, from a want of water, and of navigable rivers. The great river Rio Bravo del Norte, and the Rio Colorado, are the only rivers that merit attention, from the length of their course, and the great mass of water which they carry to the ocean; but, flowing as they do, in the most uncultivated part of the kingdom, it will be long before they possess any interest with regard to commerce. In all the equinoctial part of Mexico, only small rivers are met with; but their estuaries are very broad. The narrow form of the continent prevents the union of a great body of water; while the rapid declivity of the Cordillera gives rise to torrents rather than rivers. Among the small number of rivers which are found in the southern part of the country, the only ones that may one day or other become interesting for the commerce of the interior, are, the Rio Huasaculaco and that of Alvarado, both of which are to the south-east of Vera Cruz, and are calculated to facilitate the communication with the kingdom of Guatimala; the Rio de Montezuma, which carries the waters of the lakes and valley of Tenochtitlan to the Rio de Panuco, and by which, forgetting the elevation of the ground, a navigation has been proposed between the capital and the castern coast; the Rio de Zacatula; and, in fine, the great river of Saint Jago or Tololotlan, formed by the union of the rivers of Leorma, and Las Laxas, which might convey the flour of Salamanca, of Zelaya, and, perhaps, also, that of the whole intendency of Guadalaxara, to Port San Blas, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.