Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-10-23

fced-Wf1 Attract Our Citizens to Mexico
 A great work has been practically fin ished, the drainage of the Mexican val ley, which has required for its compile tion nearly 800 years and many millions of dollars and has cost the lives of hun dreds of thousands of men.
 The valley of Mexico is an immense basin of approximately circular shape, with one extreme diameter of about 50 miles, completely bounded by high mountains, and having only two or three quite high passes out of it. No water drains out of the basin. The surface of this valley has a mean altitude above the sea of 7,413 feet and an area of about 2,220 square miles. Mountain ranges rise on every side, making a great corral of rock containing dozens of vil- lages and hamlets, with the ancient capital in the center. In times past the fires of volcanoes licked up the earth, and such fires still live in the mammoth Popocatepetl, from whose great nav sulphur fumes and smoke with jets of flame have poured through the centuries.
 The valley thus hemmed in with solid wallsof rock had been an inland sea for many cycles, and during the early exist enee of man here the salt waters spread over a large extent of the depression. The waters have been gradually lessen ing by seepage and evaporation, and the Aztec pilgrims, coming from the north iii the fourteenth century, having s,.-. Ao It, T their queen of the world city on small island of the sea, set about building dikes and combating the overflow of the waters. Many of their works remain to this day, and show that the valley was divided by them into five great de- partments. The dikes were built under the direction of Kiug Netzahnalcoyotl, relative of the Emperor Monte zuma. whose surviving works prove him to have been all engineer whose concep- tions and accomplishments would have given him high standing even among modern engineers.
 Originally built in the midst of lake, the city has been left on dry ground by the receding waters Lake Tezcueo, some three miles distant, Chaleo and Xochimilco have attitudes nearly four feet greater than the pavement of the capital Still more imperiously do the lakes to the north dominate the city. San Cristobal and Xaltocan are about five feet, while .zumpango is over B feet above it.
 The project now completed is mod ification of q scheme projected by Simon Mendez in the time of the Spanish gov ernment, which i'll 1S49 was adopted by Captain Smith of the corps of American engineers which accompanied General Scott's army. The tunnel was ultimate ly located under the saddle and through the ravine of Acatlan, its mouth being near the village of Tequixquiac The works have been begun several times and then suspended without effecting anything of importance. In 1866 the works now nearing completion were commenced. A project proposed by Senor Francisco de Garay, we'll known engineer of the City of Mexico, was pronounced the most feasible. But the revolutionary struggle succeeded, and for many years the work was relegated to the hackgrOunQ.
 h 1879 Engineer Don Luis Espinosa, the present director of the works, took charge of the undertaking. In the first period mentioned the cutting of Tequix- quiac was excayated, and the greater part of the shafts was begun. But at that point the work was stopped by po- litical agitations The work was really commenced in 1885, when the city council of Mexico submitted project to the federal government and offered to contribute largely to the cost. President Porfirio Diaz then named special com mission with ample authority to disbursc : the funds. dedicated to the work.
 The drainage works, now carried out, will receive the surplus waters and sew age of the City of Mexico and carry them outside of the valley, and will also con trol the entire waters of the valley, af- fording an outlet. whenever found nec- essary, to those which might otherwise overflow fields and towns, rendering the soil stagnant and marshy. The sewers of the City of Mexico form network of covered channels, located sometimes in | the middle and sometimes on the sides of the streets, these being almost always gorges, communicating with system of secondary sewers that empty into q col iecting sewer discharging into the canal of San Lazaro, which transport the sew age to Lake Tezcuco. If the water is high in the lake, water backs up into the sewers and saturates the soil under the houses and streets.
 The canal and six mile tunnel through the mountain range have total length approaching 40 miles. The present works will take rank with the great achieve ments of modern times, just as the i'm 1 mense cut of Nochitongo, their un- successful predecessor, Was the leader among ancient earthworks in all the world. The completed system will have cost S20. GOO. GOO.