The Iola register., 1882-10-06
Physical Characteristics Of Mexico.

Physical Characteristics Of Mexico.
Mexico in her physical proportions,
confgurations and situation on the globe
certainly offers many inducements to
railway speculation. A territory larger
than the combined territories Of Great
Britain, France, Spain and the entire
German Empire; reaching from the Gulf
of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and form
ing what Humboldt some eighty years. ago
termed the bridge of the worlds COM
merce; bounded by the United States for
distance of nearly two thousand miles;
with physical conformation which en-
ables her soils to yield the products of
every climate and every Zone; with min
eral deposits which have already yielded
more than half of the existing stock of
silver in the world, and which are be-
lieved by some to be still the richest on
the globe; without single competing
navigable stream, or one that can ever be
made navigable to advantage; with q
physical confguration which must for
ever preclude canalization; with popu-
latiOn of ten millions, or only about one
and seventy one-hundredths per square
mile less than the population of the
United States per square mile; with
twelve cities ranging from twenty-five
thousand to two hundred and eighty
thousand inhabitants; and with . for
eign commerce averaging from seventy to
eighty millions year, though conducted
with no better facilities of internal trans
pOrtation than the backs of mules and
some three hundred and fifty miles of
railway-such a country certainly pos
sesses some advantages for railway i'm
provement that are not possessed in an
equal degree by any other nation or
people.
But to all the blessings of this world
conditions more or less serious are always
attached. A country which enjoys the
climate and yields the products of every
zone within twenty-six degrees of
latitude, can hardly be expected to
produce homogeneous population, or to
enjoy climate altogether favorable to
the growth and longevity of a hardy and
powerful race of men.
The greater portion of Mexico is from
five to seven thousand feet above the
level of the sea, and is invested with an
abnormally rarefied atmosphere. Most
of the remainder of Mexico lies along
the coast, is very hot, and never free from
malignant disease.
Up to the present time no people.
that is. no people that deserves to be re-
garded as an active force-has ever -four
ished in so high an atmosphere as the
Mexican plateau, or in so high an aver
age temperature as her sea-board plains.
People born under better conditions have
frequently invaded and occupied Mexico,
but all have failed to maintain them
selves therein part, perhaps, from the
difficulty of doing So; in part, ako, per-
haps, because the possession was not worth
the cost. 1t is true that Mexico is the
only country in which Providence has
made such an experiment, but it is none
the less true that thus far the experiment
has not proved that she can ever become
the seat of ruling race.
Mexico can hardly be said to have a
single good seaport, or one capable of be-
ing made adequate to the exigencies of
modern maratime commerce. Nor has
she single navigable stream. In one
sense this may justly be thought advan-
tageous rather than prejudicial to rail-
way system, as it implies the absence of
waterways; usually the most formidable
of all kinds of competition, but that is
mistake. No highway has yet been de-
vised so cheap as the ocean, yet to this
day it contributes the largest portion of
their business to all the railway systems
of the globe.
Of the ten millions of people in Mexi-
co, fully three-quarters are Indians, two
thirds of whom cannot read, nor even
had an ancestor that could, who never
slept in bed or wore a stocking, and
who are accustomed to live at less ex-
pense per day than farm horse would |
cost in any New England State. These
are none Of them controlling considera-
tions perhaps, but in studying the natu-
raj attractions of Mexico for railway en-
terprise they must not be lost sight Of
John Bigelow, in Harper's Magazine.