ropriately likened to an inverted
cornucopia. Its greatest length from northwest to southeast is almost
exactly two thousand miles, and its greatest width, which is at the
twenty-sixth degree of north latitude, is seven hundred and fifty miles.
The minimum width is at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where it contracts
to a hundred and fifty miles. The area of the entire republic is
probably a little less than eight hundred thousand square miles.
Trustworthy statistics relating to Mexico are not attainable. Even
official reports are scarcely better than estimates. Carlos Butterfield,
accredited statistician, makes the area of the republic about
thirty-three thousand square miles less than the figures we have given.
He also calculates that the density of the population is some ten or
eleven to the square mile. Other authorities, however, give the area
much nearer to our own figures. A detailed survey which would enable us
to get at a satisfactory aggregate has never been made, so that a
careful estimate is all we have to depend upon.

The climate of the country is divided by common acceptation into three
zones, each of which is well defined: it being hot in the _tierra
caliente_, or hot lands, of the coast; temperate in the _tierra
templada_, or region between three thousand and six thousand feet above
the level of the sea; and cold in the _tierra fria_, or region at an
elevation exceeding six thousand feet. In the first named the extreme
heat is 100 deg. Fahr.; in the last the extreme of cold is 20 deg. above zero.
In the national capital the mercury ranges between 65 deg. and 75 deg. Fahr.
throughout the year. In fact, every climate known to the traveler may be
met with between Vera Cruz and the capital of the republic. In the
neighborhood of Orizaba one finds sugar-cane and Indian corn, tobacco
and palm-trees, bananas and peaches, growing side by side.

Let us state in brief, for general information, the main products of
these three geographical divisions. In the hot region we find cotton,
vanilla, hemp, pepper, cocoa, oranges, bananas, indigo, rice, and
various other tropical fruits. In the temperate region, tobacco, coffee,
sugar, maize, the brown bean, peas, and most of the favorite northern
fruits. Here extreme heat and frost are alike unknown. In the cold
region, all of the hardy vegetables, such as potatoes, beets, carrots,
and the cereals, wheat growing at as high an elevation as eighty-five
hundred feet, while two