The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1914-06-10
Where Opposites Abound
On Every Hand.
SOME STRANGE COMPARISONS
A Land Rich In Natural Re.
sources, Yet Poverty
Is Everywhere.
is FAMOUS FOR ITS MINERALS


Perhaps nowhere else in the world
is there country so full OF con-
, trasts as Mexico. With a university
established before John Harvard,
Elihu Yale or William and Mary
were born. the masses of it's people
are hopelessly ignorant With a
hospital founded before jamestown
was even dreamed Of, it is one of
the most backward regions of the
earth in a medical way. With nat
ural riches greater than those of a
thousand Midases, its masses are
Just as poor as the proverbial church
mouse. With the constitution as
perfect as any organic law In the
civilized world. IL is a nation whose
rulers always have been a law unto
themselves.
Here you will see a Mexican half
breed, barefooted, wearing 81 pair
of trousers, a fifty-cent shirt and
$40 sombrero. There, at a single
glance and within the length of a
single city block. you may see an In
/ dian cargador, a donkey cart. an OK
/ cart, carriage, a railroad train,
! street car and a motor car-almost
every type of locomotion since
Adam. You may tread the burning
sands Of tropical desert with the
wet of perpetual snow of towering
mountains still upon your shoes.
| You may take a single railway jour
ney of Sc hours in which the people
you see at the railroad stations will
be dressed in four different weights
of clothing. Everywhere you turn
there is contrast, high lights and
, deep shadows.
Mexico probably has a greater
range of remarkable vegetation than
any other country in the world. The
parrot fruit tree produces an odd
shaped fruit, bearing a close resem-
blance to green parakeets. When
| the parakeet is frightened it makes
a dash for the parrot tree, where it
assumes a position which makes it
look like the fruit itself. SO close
is the resemblance that their enc
mics, the hawks, occasionally fly by
a tree on which dozen or more of
these birds are sitting, apparently
unaware of their presence.
Another remarkable tree is the
Arbol de acknowledgements tree
whose fruit, If kept in warm
place, bursts with considerable force
and loud report, scattering its fiat
seeds to surprising distance. One
of the most interesting fruits in
Mexico is known as the melon apote,
or papaya. 1t contains considerable
pepsin, which reacts against both |
acid and alkaline conditions of the
stomach, and it is said that diet
which includes papaya precludes
leaves possess the singular property
of rendering tough meat tender.
When the pulp of the fruit is rubbed |
over piece of tough meat, the
juice attacks the fiber and softens it.
No other country south of the Rio
Grande is so well equipped with |
railroads. Prior to the Madero rev.
olution ii had twenty thousand miles
of up-to-date American railroad,
which carried | 100000 passengers
annually and about 100000 tons
of freight Their total revenues
amounted to about S40,000,0OO.
The Government owns a controlling |
interest in the major part of the |
mileage of the railroads.
Mexico produces one-third of the |
worlds silver. considerable per-
centage of its gold, one-ninth of is
per. The country's mineral prcduc-
ton. exclusive of iron, coal an pc
troleum, amounted to $15S. 900. 900 !
in 1910. The famous iron noun
tain at Durango is estimated to con-
tain 600.00O.000 tons of iron ore,
which is worth seven times the val
ne of all the gold and silver mined
in Mexico In two centuries. The
Santa Maria graphite mines are the
largest and most important in the
western world. The region around
the Gulf of Mexico is very rich in
petroleum. One company at Poteri
del Llano struck gusher which
flowed 100000 barrels of oil day.
Il National Geographic Magazine.