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 dwellings, but the Laguna tribe, numbering, 1077 in 1900 and 1384 in 1905, now live mostly in their former summer villages on the plain. The other Indians live on reservations, of which there are three: the Mescalero Apache reservation, in Otero county, containing 554 Indians in 1900; the Jicarilla Apache reservation, in Rio Arriba county, with a population of 829; and the Navaho reservation, in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, which contains in that part of it situated in New Mexico a population of 2480.

The inhabitants of Spanish descent have been only slightly assimilated and cling tenaciously to their racial peculiarities. As a rule, they live in low adobe houses built around a court, and are poor and ignorant, but hospitable. They are more Americanized in the Rio Grande Valley than among the mountains, where English is rarely spoken. Many of them have intermarried with the Indians, creating the class of half-breeds known as “Mestizos.” Although the proportion of Spanish-American and Indian inhabitants is steadily decreasing with the arrival of immigrants from other parts of the United States, it was nevertheless computed by the New Mexican authorities to be about 63% in 1904. About one-tenth of the Spanish-American and Indian population habitually use the English language.

The total population of New Mexico in 1870 was 91,874; in 1880, 119,565; in 1890, 153,593; in 1900, 195,310, and in 1910, according to the U.S. census, the figure was 327,301. Of the native white population in 1900, 17,917 were of foreign parentage. Of the foreign-born element 6649, or about one-half, were Mexicans, 1360 were Germans and the rest chiefly English, Irish, Canadians, Italians, Scotch and Austrians. The chief cities were Albuquerque (6238), Santa Fé (5603), Las Vegas (3552) and Raton (3540). Far the greater portion of the population (in 1906, 56·2% of the estimated population) are communicants of the Roman Catholic Church, which had in 1906 121,558 members, the total communicants of all denominations in that year numbering 137,009. Among Protestants there were 6560 Methodists, 2935 Presbyterians and 2331 Baptists.

Administration.—The executive officers until 1911 were a governor and a Territorial secretary appointed by the President of the United States, and a treasurer, auditor, superintendent of public instruction, adjutant-general, commissioner of public lands and other administrative officials appointed by the governor. The legislative department included a council of 12 members and a House of Representatives of 24 members, chosen by popular vote. The sessions were biennial and limited to 60 days. All laws passed by the Assembly and approved by the governor had to be submitted to the Federal Congress for its approval. The Territory was represented in Congress by a delegate, chosen by popular vote, with the right to speak in the national legislature but not to vote. The judicial department included a supreme court, district courts, probate courts and local justices of the peace. The supreme court consisted of a chief justice and six associate justices appointed by the President. There were seven judicial districts, each with a court presided over by a justice of the supreme court. Each county had a probate court, and each precinct a justice of the peace.

For the purposes of local government New Mexico is divided into 26 counties, each being governed by a board of county commissioners, chosen by the people. Each county is divided by the commissioners into precincts. Municipal corporations with a population of 3000 and over are cities, and are governed through a mayor and board of aldermen; those with a population of between 1500 and 3000 are towns, and are governed through a mayor and trustees.

History.—To the existence of an Old-World myth New Mexico owes its early exploration by the Spaniards. Early in the 16th century it was believed that in the New World would be found the fabled cities and creatures of which Europeans had heard for centuries. There was a story that in the 8th century a bishop of Lisbon, to escape from the Arabs, had fled to islands in the West, where he and his followers had founded seven cities; and when the Indians in Mexico related to the Spanish explorers a bit of their folk-lore, to the effect that they had issued from seven caves, the imaginative white men soon identified these caves with the famous Seven Cities. In 1536 came Cabeza