nce
of droughts in that section and agriculture can be advantageously
carried on by irrigation. Up to the present, however, this work of
irrigation has been very imperfect and unsystematic, and the results on
the whole have not been satisfactory.

The Luquillo range ends ten miles from San Juan. The capital is,
therefore, to a certain degree sheltered by a mountain wall from the
rain-bearing winds, which, in the warmest months blow mainly from
easterly points. Still all the northern adjacent shores and lowlands are
subject to flooding by torrents of rain.

Taking it as a whole, the island is approximately roof-shaped, so that
the rainfall is rapidly drained off.

In the interior are extensive plains and there are level tracts from
five to ten miles wide on the coast.

The soil of Porto Rico is exceedingly fertile. In the mountains it is a
red clay, colored with peroxide of iron, in the valleys it is black and
less compact, and on the coasts it is sandy, but capable of some
culture.

The pasture lands in the northern and eastern parts of the island are
superior to any others in the West Indies.

Porto Rico is essentially a land of rivers and streams. Of course none
of them are of any great length, but of the entire number, some thirteen
hundred, forty are navigable for more or less distances for commercial
purposes.

Mr. John Beggs, a former planter of Porto Rico, says that the island is
perfectly adapted for commerce. Sugar, coffee, cotton, corn and potatoes
are constantly shipped down the navigable rivers, and were Porto Rico to
be fully cultivated, many more streams could be opened and communication
made between others by means of canals, so that the entire island would
present a system of water ways which would make it an ideal place for
the shipping of useful articles to the United States.

The water of the rivers and brooks and lakes is remarkably pure, and
there is quite an industry in its shipment for sale to other West India
islands. It is stated that more than twenty of these islands send to
Porto Rico for water. Little boats sail up the harbor of San Juan, fill
their tanks with water and sail away again, Havana's chief scourge is
the lack of fresh water, but Porto Rico has all the water it can use and
enough to supply islands hundreds of miles away.

The anchorages can not be said to be the best in the world, although a
few of them are excellent, and most of them sufficiently deep for
ordinary craf