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PHYSIOGRAPHY] He took the oaths to William and Mary in 1689. In the absence of Compton, bishop of London, Mews took the chief part at the consecration of Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury in 1691.

MEXBOROUGH, an urban district in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on the Don, 11 m. N.E. of Sheffield on the Great Central and Midland railways. Pop. (1891), 7734; (1901), 10,430. The Don affords water communication with the Humber. The church of St John the Baptist has Early English portions. The large industrial population is mainly employed in glass, pottery and iron works, and in the neighbouring stone-quarries. The Castle Hill is crowned with some fine earthworks of uncertain date.

MEXICO (Span. Méjico, or Mexico,) officially styled Estados Unidos Mexicanos and República Mexicana, a federal republic of North America extending from the United States of America southward to Guatemala and British Honduras, and lying between the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea on the east. Its northern boundary line was fixed by the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty of 1848 and the Gadsden treaty of 1853; it follows the Rio Grande del Norte from its mouth north-westward to lat. 31° 47′ N., thence on that parallel W. 100 m., thence S. to lat. 31° 20′ N., thence due W. to the 111th meridian, thence in a straight line (nearly W.N.W.) to a point on the Colorado river 20 m. below the mouth of the Gila river, thence northward to the mouth of the Gila, and thence, nearly due W., along the old line between Upper and Lower California to a point on the Pacific coast one marine league S. of the southernmost point of San Diego Bay; this line has a total length of 1810 m., of which the Rio Grande comprises 1136 and the land route 674 m. The boundary line with Guatemala, for a long time in dispute, was fixed by the treaties of 1882 and 1895. It is an arbitrary line and follows only two natural lines of demarcation—the Suchiate river from the Pacific coast to its source, and the Chixoy and Usumacinta rivers from near the 16th parallel N.W. to a point on the latter 25 kilometres, S. of Tenosique (Tabasco). Between these rivers the boundary line is determined by the peaks of Tacana, Buenavista and Ixbul, and from the Usumacinta eastward it follows two parallels of latitude, one on the point of departure from that river, and the other, the longer, on that of 17° 49′ to the British Honduras frontier. The boundary with British Honduras was determined by a treaty of 1893 and is formed in great part by the Hondo river down to the head of Chetumal Bay, and thence through that bay to the Boca Bacalar Chica—the channel separating Yucatán from Ambergris Cay. Geographically, Mexico extends from 14° 30′ 42″ (the mouth of the Suchiate) to 32° 42′ N. lat., and from 86° 46′ 08″ to 117° 07′ 31″ W. long. Approximately its greatest length from N.W. to S.E. is 1900 m., its greatest width 750 m., and its least width a little short of 140 m. In outline it is sometimes compared to a huge cornucopia with its small end curving S.E. and N. The interior curve formed by the Gulf of Mexico is comparatively regular and has a coast-line of about 1400 m. The Caribbean coast-line is about 327 m. long, exclusive of indentations. The outer curve facing the Pacific is less regular, is deeply broken by the Gulf of California, and has a coast-line of 4574 m., including that of the Gulf. The peninsula of (q.v.) lies parallel with the mainland coast and extends southward to about 22° 52′ N. lat., a distance of nearly 760 m. The area of Mexico is commonly given by English authorities as 767,005 sq. m., by German statisticians as 1,987,201 sq. kiloms. (767,290 sq. m.), and by H. H. Bancroft, who quotes official figures, as 1,962,899 sq. kiloms. (757,907 sq. m.).

Physiography.—The surface features consist of an immense elevated plateau with a chain of mountains on its eastern and western margins, which extends from the United States frontier southward to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; a fringe of lowlands (tierras calientes) between the plateau and coast on either side; a detached, roughly mountainous section in the south-east, which belongs to the Central American Plateau, and a low sandy plain covering the greater part of the Isthmus of Yucatán. The peninsula of Lower California is traversed from north to south by a chain of barren mountains which covers the greater part of its surface. The slopes are precipitous on the east coast, but on the west they break down in hills and terraces to the Pacific. This range may be considered a southward continuation of the Californian Sierra Nevada. The great plateau of Mexico is very largely of volcanic origin. Its superstructure consists of igneous rocks of all descriptions with which the original valleys between its marginal ranges have been filled by volcanic action. The remains of transverse and other ranges are to be seen in the isolated ridges and peaks which rise above the level of the table-land, in some cases forming well-defined basins; otherwise the surface is singularly uniform in character and level. The two noteworthy depressions in its surface, the Valley of Mexico and Bolsón de Mapimi, once contained large bodies of water, of which only small lakes and marshy lagoons now remain. The highest part of this great plateau is to be found in the states of Mexico and Puebla, where the general elevation is about 8000 ft. Southward the slope is broken into small basins and terraces by transverse ranges, and is comparatively abrupt. Northward the slope is gentle, and is broken by several transverse ridges. At Ciudad Juarez (adjoining El Paso, Texas), on the northern frontier, the elevation is 3600 ft., which shows a slope of only ft. to the mile, Less is definitely known of the elevated regions of Chiapas, on the border of Guatemala, which are separated from the great Mexican Plateau by the low Isthmus of Tehuantepec (718 ft. at the highest point of the transisthmian railway), but their general elevation is much lower, and they are broken by wooded sierras and eroded by water-courses.

The mountain ranges which form part of the great Mexican Plateau consist of two marginal chains known as the Sierra Madre Occidental, on the west, the Sierra Madre Oriental, on the east, and a broken, weakly-defined chain of transverse ranges and ridges between the 18th and 20th parallels known as the Cordillera de Anahuac. All these chains are known locally under diverse names. The Sierra Madre Occidental consists of several parallel ranges in the north, where a broad belt of country is covered with a labyrinth of ridges and valleys. The most eastern of these are known as the Sierra Tarahumare and Sierra del Durango, and the most western as the Sierra del Nazareno, Sierra Yaqui and Sierra Fuerte. These converge in southern Sinaloa and Durango to form the Sierra de Nayarit. Near the 20th parallel the great chain again divides, the eastern part crossing the southern end of the plateau, and the western, or Sierra Madre del Sur, following the shore line closely to Tehuantepec. The Sierra Madre Occidental has but few noteworthy elevations, its culminating points being the Nevado de Colima (14,363 ft.) and Volcan de Colima (12,750 ft.) in the state of Jalisco. In the Sierra de Nayarit the Cerro Pimal rises to an elevation of 11,319 ft., and in the extreme south the Cerro del Leone to 10,302 ft. These sierras lying near the coast have an imposing appearance from the lowlands, but when seen from the plateau their general elevation is so dwarfed as to render them comparatively inconspicuous. The Sierra Madre Oriental consists of a broken chain of ranges extending along the eastern margin of the plateau from the great bend in the Rio Grande south-eastward to about the 19th parallel. In the north these ranges are low and offer no great impediment to railroad building. South of Tampico, however, they are concentrated in a single lofty range. This range extends south-eastward along the western frontier of Vera Cruz (state) and includes the snow-capped cone of Orizaba or Citlaltepetl (18,209 ft.), and the Cofre de Perote, or Nanchampapetl (13,419 ft.). The eastern slopes are abrupt and difficult, and are a serious impediment to communication with the coast. Rising from the open plateau half way between this range and the city of Mexico is the isolated cone of Malinche, or Malintzin (14,636 ft.). Crossing the highest part of the Mexican Plateau is a broken series of ranges, which form the water-parting between its northern and southern slopes. To a part of these ranges has been given the name of Cordillera de Anahuac, but there is no true cordillera across this part of Mexico. In a general sense these ranges may be considered part of the eastern branch of the Sierra Madre Occidental, which turns eastward on the 20th parallel and crosses the plateau in a south by east direction. Southward the plateau is traversed by many low ranges and breaks down in terraces, forming one of the most fertile and attractive parts of the republic. Close to the capital are the Sierra de Ajusco, whose highest point is 13,078 ft. above sea-level, the Nevado de Toluca (15,168 ft.), in a range which separates the valleys of Mexico and Toluca, the Montes de las Cruces, and that volcanic, spur-like range, running northward at right angles to the axis of the other ranges, whose culminating points, some 20 m. south-east of the city, are the gigantic, snow-clad volcanoes of Popocatepetl (Smoking Mountain) and Ixtaccihuatl (White Woman). Both of them are extinct and Popocatepetl no longer smokes. Their elevations, according to the Comisión Geográfica Exploradora, are 17,888 and 17,343 ft. respectively, that of Ixtaccihuatl being the highest of its three crests. This part of Mexico is highly volcanic in character, the transverse ridge just described having a large number of extinct volcanoes and at least three (Colima, Jorullo and Ceboruco) that are either active or semi-active. Colima was in a state of eruption as late as 1909,