The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-07-09
In FAIR PORTO RICO
uRII1F KITE-TAIL VIEW OF UN-
Gle SANS NEW swift
KIRKLAND
WONDERFUL SCENIC BEAUTIES

How Our Government Wiped Out the
SmaIIpox-SoO.OO Sore Arms and
How They Were Made-A Visit to
Uncle Sans New Vaccine Farm.
Showing How Our Army Surgeons
InocuIats Cattle by thousands.
Copyright, 1899. by Frank G. Carpenter.)
SAN JUAN, Porto Rico, June 25.-How
shall I describe it? 1t is different from
anything that has been published con-
corning it. It has more curious features
than any part of the South American con-
tinent, where 1 have been travelling for
the past year, and a richer soil than al
most any part of the world.
1 came to Porto Rico on the government
transport Mcpherson, and have already
crossed the island from one side to the
other, making many excursions through
the interior. The island is revelation
to me. I have never seen a country in
which nature has done so much to make
a pleasant home for man.
Porto Rico is a combination of the beau
ties of the tropics and temperate zone.
1t is the new Switzerland of Uncle Sam s
dominion. It lacks perhaps the grand
eur of the Alps or the Rockies, but its
quiet semitropical beauties more than
make up for lack Of SHOWS and gigantic
rocks. Sometimes in going over it I am
reminded of Japan, and again I am car
ried back to the mountains of Corea or
the hills of China. There are silver
streams, with matched huts clinging to
the sides of the hills, down which they
run; there are regions which equal the
Blue Ridge mountains in their soft, haZy
beauty, and other parts in which were it
not for the bananas, the cocoanut palms,
the bread fruit trees and other tropical
wonders you might imagine yourself at
home in some of the most beautiful Of our
rolling lands.
A KITE TAIL VIEW.
Before I describe my tour CT the island
let me give you bird s-eye view of it.
Suppose we could attach ourselves for the
purpose to the tail of one of our weather
bureau kites. which, 1 believe, mount
higher than any other kites made by
man, and fly over it. We should see a
great rectangular body of blue land ris-
ing, as 1t were, out of some Of the quiet
est waters Of the globe.
Porto Rico is about !, 400 miles from New
York on the boundary between the Allan
tic ocean and the Caribbean sea.
1t lies between the islands of-Santo Do
mingo and st. Thomas. 1t is so near the
latter island that you can steam there in
about, six hours, and so far east of Cuba
that it takes our best transports two days
to go from Ponce, on the south, to the
city Of Santiago.
Porto Rico, as we see 1t from our kite,
is a mass of rolling hills. With the ex-
ception Of a light green fringe bordering
the coast it is all hills and valleys. And
such hills and valleys. The hills slope UP
In places like walls, and the valleys are
gigantic capital VS., with mountain
streams dashing through them. Every
thing is covered with green, the dark
shades of the mountains largely composed
of coffee, tobacco and bananas while the
sickly green of the coastal plains comes
from the sugar plantations.
In looking at the island you see that the
hills rise higher In the center. 1t is divid-
ed by a mountain chain, which runs
through it from west to east, branching
out near the end in two spurs. This ridge
looks just like a pitchfork with two great
tines and a long handle. The joint of the
fork is about sixty miles from the west
ern end of the island, and each of the
tines is about forty miles long. Not fal
from where they join one green mountain
rises high above the others. This is e
Yunuue, or the anvil, - the highest point
in Porto Rico. 1t is $500 feet above the
level of the ocean, and you can see Il
far out in the Atlantic and in the Carib
bean.
WHERE ATLANTIC is DEEPEST.
It is the top of the mountain chail
which, rising out of the sea, forms tn
Antilles. These islands are, in fact, mere
" the peaks of a great mountain rang
which extends far down into the bed o
the ocean. If the water could be takel
away or walled off, you would here hav
some of the highest mountains of tn
globe. The deepest part Of the Atlanti
is Just north of Porto Rico. In coming t
San Juan 1 sailed over Brownson's Deer
the bottom Of which is five miles unde
water. 1t was at the point in the ocea,
plain where the land rises and hnall
eliminates in Ell Yunque If you coul
shut the sea off from this point the to
of Porto Rico would be higher than an
mountain in the Andes or the Rookie:
1t would be higher than anything 1
Himalayas. The same mountain chat
springs up out of the water in Cuba to
distance of 5000 feet above the sea, an
in Santo Domingo, where 1t is the tales
to 11,O0O feet. It rapidly falls toward tn
east and in st. Thomas 1t rises only hal
as high as Porto Rico above the water
MOLE ON RACE OF TEXAS.
have called Porto Rico a garden patel
It is little more than that in size CON
pared with the United States. 1t is 8
small 1t would hardly be mole on tn
face of Texas. 1t would take just abou
1000 Porto Ricos If they could be slice
off and patched together, to make Graz
quilt covering the United States. 1t
only three times as big as Rhode Island
about half as big as New Jersey and littl
less than half the size Of Massachusetts
You could put ten Porto Ricos into II
diana, and if you cut 1t up into squares
would only be sixty times the size of tn
District of Columbia. Its average widt
is about as great as from Washingto
to Baltimore, and its length is not niue
greater than from Baltimore to Philade
phia Were 1T level you could walk fro1
one end Of 1t to the other in three day
and across it in one. On a bicycle 70
could travel over it in a few hours frol
coast to coast.
THE PEOPLE SWARM.
Notwithstanding its smallness howeve
1t is more thickly populated than any
our states except Massachusetts an
Rhode Island. 1t has $4,000 people, or q
to the square mile. A square mile Is G.
acres. It is just a section of land. o
every section of Porto Rico there are q
people, and on every quarter section,
100-acre farm, there are living on til
average about f1fty-four souls.
This is so Notwithstanding the islam
has almost no manufacturers. The peop'
all live off the soil, and hence their cond
ton cannot be compared with that Of tn
people of our thickly settled manufactul