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GOVERNMENTS SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION OF AYUTLA

Acting President....General Martin Carrera, August 14, 1855, to September 12, 1855.

In charge of

Federal District...General Romulo Diaz de la Vega, September 12, 1855, to October 4, 1855.

Acting President....General Juan Alvarez, October 4, 1855, to December 9, 1855.

Substitute

President. . . . . . .

President...

Provisional
President..
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President.

Provisional

President. . . . .

In charge of the
Executive Power..

Provisional
President...

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President.

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General Ignacio Comonfort, December 11, 1855, to December 1, 1857.

General Ignacio Comonfort, December 1, 1857, to December 19, 1857.

Benito Juárez, December 19, 1857, to June 15, 1861. .Benito Juárez, June 15, 1861, to November 8, 1865. 1861-1867, period of French Intervention and of Maximilian.

.Benito Juárez, November 8, 1865, to December 25, 1867.

.Benito Juárez, December 25, 1867, to December 1, 1871.

.Benito Juárez, December 1, 1871, to July 18, 1872. (Died in office.)

.Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, July 18, 1872, to December 1, 1872.

.Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, December 1, 1872, to November 21, 1876.

General Porfirio Diaz, November 28, 1876, to December 6, 1876.

General Juan N. Mendez, December 6, 1876, to February 16, 1877.

. General Porfirio Diaz, February 16, 1877, to May 5,

1877.

..General Porfirio Diaz, May 5, 1877, to November 30, 1880.

..General Manuel González, December 1, 1880, to November 30, 1884.

General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1884, to November 30, 1888.

General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1888, to November 30, 1892.

. General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1892, to November 30, 1896.

. General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1896, to November 30, 1900.

.General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1900, to November, 1904.

..General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1904, to November 30, 1910.

President...

General Porfirio Diaz, December 1, 1910, to May 25, 1911.

Since the overthrow of Diaz, the following have exercised executive power, though frequently their claims to the office have not been admitted by the country generally or recognized by other nations.

Francisco Leon de la Barra, May 25, 1911, to November 10, 1911.

Francisco I. Madero, November 10, 1911, to February 19, 1913.

Pedro Lascurain, from 7 p.m. to 7:46 p.m., February 19, 1913.

Victoriano Huerta, February 19, 1913, to August 13, 1914.

Eulalio Gutierrez, December 13, 1914, to January 25,
1915.

Roque González Garza, January 30, 1915, to May, 1915.
Francisco Lagos Cházaro, July 31, 1915, to October,

1915.

Venustiano Carranza, March 11, 1917; assassinated
May 21, 1920.

Adolfo de la Huerta, President ad interim, June 1 to
November 30, 1920.

Alvaro Obregón, December 1, 1920.

NATURE'S HAND IN MEXICO

A SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY AND ITS EFFECT ON THE CLIMATE, THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INDUSTRIES

By WALLACE THOMPSON

Author of "The People of Mexico," etc.

Area and Extent: The vast cornucopia-like triangle of land which comprises the territory of Mexico lies south of nearly three-quarters of the southern boundary of the United States. Its western tip touches Southern California at the Pacific and its most easterly point is five hundred miles south of Pensacola, at the western end of Florida. For 1833 miles Mexico's northern border is contiguous to the United States, 693 miles eastward along arbitrarily marked lines from the Pacific Ocean to El Paso, Texas, and the remainder southeastward along the sinuous course of the Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. Its jagged southern border is hardly four hundred miles long, touching Guatemala and British Honduras (Belize).

This cornucopia, grasping the Gulf of Mexico on the east like a great hand, swings southeastward from the Pacific contact with the United States until the most westerly point of the Guatemalan border is five hundred miles east of Mexico's easternmost contact with the United States on the north.

Set apart, as Mexico is by her boundaries, she seems in form much like a great peninsula, but she has, herself, two important peninsulas as part of her territorial extent and configuration. One is the Peninsula of Yucatán, which forms the eastern tip of the cornucopia, the thumb of the curving hand which grasps the Gulf of Mexico, an area of about 50,000 square miles. The other is the long, narrow peninsula of Lower California, with 58,343 square miles, extending directly south of the American state of California and connected with the Mexican mainland by only a narrow strip.

That mainland comprises, with the two peninsulas, 765,762 square miles, and the 1561 square miles of coastal islands under Mexican sovereignty bring the total area of the country up to 767,323 square miles. The greatest width of the mainland is 750 miles, and the greatest length is 1942 miles, from the northwestern tip of Lower California, where it joins the United States, to the southernmost point in the jagged Guatemalan border in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The narrowest point in Mexico is 120 miles, at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, once discussed as the possible site of an interoceanic canal, and in the time of Diaz the route of a great trans-shipping railway between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic (Gulf of Mexico) coastiine of Mexico is 1727 miles long, that of the Pacific (including the long border of Lower California) 4574 miles.

Lying between 32° 30′ and 14° 30′ North Latitude and 86° 30′ and 117° Longitude west from Greenwich, the triangu

lar form of the Mexican territory places it about equally in the temperate and torrid zones. This is a primary factor in Mexican climate, but far more significant, indeed, is the contour of the country itself.

Mountains: The land is largely mountainous, for if we include. the fertile tablelands, nearly two-thirds of the country is covered with mountain ranges. The Rocky Mountains of the United States, the great backbone of the Western Hemisphere, cross the Mexican border into Sonora, and almost immediately south of the international line begin spreading eastward. A long, slowly rising valley a hundred miles wide, continues southward from El Paso, narrowing rapidly, while to the eastward of this valley rises a new range of mountains, obviously a part of the great Rocky Mountain range, but unconnected with it in the United States and south, indeed, of the broad flat plains of Texas. This is the Sierra Madre Oriental, or Eastern Mother Range, the continuation of the Rockies in Sonora and Durango being called the Sierra Madre Occidental, or Western Mother Range. Further south, these two join together, and spread to virtually the whole width of Mexico, excepting for the Gulf coastal plain, some three hundred miles wide, to the east. All of central Mexico is mountainous, flattened only by vast plateaus which, according to the accepted geological theory, were created by alluvial deposits and lava dust from the mountains which still rise above them. At the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Sierra Madre flattens out till, save for the relatively easy grades which climb from the Gulf and from the Pacific to the summit of the low divide (about three hundred feet above the sea) the mountains might be all but gone. The narrow plane of the Isthmus passed, the mountains rise again until the center of the great state of Chiapas is once more a vast plateau accented with towering peaks, a formation which continues southward through Central America, lowers again at Panamá, but joins directly, at last, with the South American Andes.

In this vast sweep of mountainous territory are hundreds of deep cañons or barrancas, great fertile plateaus, and many wonderful mountains. Of these last the snow-peaked volcanoes about the great Valley of Anáhuac, the site of Mexico City and for ages the center of Mexican government and population, are the most famous. Here are Popocatepetl (17,520 feet) and Ixtaccihuatl (16,960 feet), and to the eastward the still more beautiful cone of Orizaba (18,250 feet). Virtually at the same latitude, but far to the west, is Colima (12,991 feet) a still active volcano. Toluca (14,950 feet), close to the Valley of Mexico, Malinche (14,636 feet) in the state of Tlaxcala, the Cofre de Perote (13,400 feet) in the state of Vera Cruz, and Tancítaro (12,664 feet) are those of greatest height. Only the already great altitude of the plateaus of Mexico from which most of the striking

mountains spring keeps hundreds of others from the notice of travelers and geologists. The scenery which results from the mountainous formations of Mexico is literally unsurpassed, for Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl can give the climber all the thrills of the Alps, and the crater lakes to be found in one or two sections of Mexico rival in splendor the more famous resorts of Europe.

The vast barrancas which mark the mountainous formation all through Mexico are magnificent to contemplate, but the day's journey down and up the sides of such a geological spectacle as the Barranca of Beltran brings home to even the amateur observer the terrific handicaps which these vast cuts put upon the industrial development of the country. Much of the conquering of these handicaps was achieved under the broad railway policy of President Diaz, and the work done still remains, but many years must now pass before the final conquest is achieved. Such a work as the building of the Colima branch of the Mexican Central, carrying a direct line for the first time. from the capital to the Pacific, will hardly be repeated when revolution threatens, for here, in less than one hundred miles, twenty great bridges had to be built, most of them crossing barrancas and cuts of geological formation, with virtually no streams filling them even in the rainy season. The Southern Pacific line from the northern border in Sonora lacks but sixty miles of linking up with the Guadalajara branch of the National Railways, but thirty of those sixty miles are through a mountainous territory, cut with deep barrancas, so that the cost of building will be close to a million dollars a mile.

Rivers and Streams: Such barrancas and valleys do not, moreover, indicate either great water-power or navigable streams. There is water-power in Mexico, to be sure, but it comes from two factors, the sheer drops which give wonderful power sites. with tremendous heads of water, and the heavy torrential rainy season. But the streams themselves do not carry sufficient water the year around to justify any plant, and tremendous reservoir development is vital to any power-plant design. Such reservoirs have been built in various parts of Mexico, but at appalling expense, and with an added and unexpected element of failurethe porousness of much of the soil of Mexico. The mountains, indeed, are of igneous rocks, but underneath is often limestone, and more often still, in those places where a great impounding of water might be made with a relatively low and inexpensive dam, the soft, porous alluvial and volcanic-ash land with which the valleys have been filled.

This porous soil is a factor bearing on the absence of both great water-power and navigable streams. Even in the lowlands the streams run underground in Mexico, and while they can be tapped by shallow wells, they deprive Mexico almost entirely of the advantages of river transportation. Even the Rio Grande,

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