Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/216

Rh 200 M E X M E X ment includes iron ore, good freestone, and fossil phosphates of lime. There are blast-furnaces, iron, copper, and bell foundries, wire- works, and manufactories of files, hardware, and edge tools. The cotton-spinning factories employ 15,000 spindles and 32,000 frames ; the woollen manufacture employs 5000 spindles, and some hundreds of persons are employed in the spinning and weaving of hemp, flax, and jute. The glass-works (particularly the manufactory of painted window-glass, transferred after the war of 1870 from Metz to Bar- le-Duc), paper-mills, saw-mills, and flour-mills, as well as the manufactures of lime, tiles, and fire-bricks, are worthy of mention. Hosiery and embroidery also give occupation to a great number of workshops, and the department is celebrated for its confectionery. Meuse contains more than 300 miles of railway, the principal lines being that from Paris to Strasburg through Bar-le-Duc and Com- mercy, that from Paris to Metz through Verdun, and the branch line to the Meuse. The chief waterways are the canal connecting the Marne with the Rhine, and the canal of the Meuse ; the two together have a length of 146 miles. The population of the depart ment in 1881 was 289,861, a small number in proportion to its extent, and with a tendency to decrease. Ecclesiastically it forms the diocese of Verdun ; it has its court of appeal at Nancy, and constitutes part of the district of the army corps of Chalons- sur-Marne. There are 4 arrondissements, Bar-le-Duc, Commercy, Montmedy, and Verdun, 28 cantons, and 586 communes. Bar- le-Duc (population in 1881, 17,485) is the capital ; Commercy has 5260 inhabitants and Montmedy 3000 ; St Mihiel (5915), on the Meuse, has good churches and some remarkable rocks, and is the seat of the departmental assize court. MEXICO mi I. ANCIENT MEXICO. I HE name Mexico is connected with the name of the _f_ group of American tribes calling themselves Mexico, (sing. Mexicatl), or Azteca. The word is related to or derived from the name of the Mexican national war-god Mexitl, better known as Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs from the 12th century appear to have migrated from place to place over the mountain-walled plateau of Anahuac, the country &quot; by the water,&quot; so called from its salt lagoons, and which is now known as the valley of Mexico. About 1325 they founded on the lake of Tezcuco the permanent settle ment of Mexico Tenochtitlan, which is still represented by the capital city Mexico. The name Mexico was given by the Spanish conquerors to the group of countries over which the Aztec power more or less prevailed at the time of the European invasion. Clavigero (Storia Antica del Messico, vol. i.) gives a map of the so-called &quot; Mexican empire,&quot; which may be roughly described as reaching from the present Zacatecas to beyond Guatemala ; it is notice able that both these names are of Mexican origin, derived respectively from words for &quot; straw &quot; and &quot; wood.&quot; Eventu ally Mexico and New Mexico came to designate the still vaster region of Spanish North America, which (till cut down by changes which have limited the modern republic of Mexico) reached as far as the Isthmus of Panama on the south and took in California and Texas on the north. Mexico in this wide sense is of high interest to the anthropologist, from the several native American civiliza tions which appear within its limits, and which con veniently if loosely group themselves round two centres, the Mexican proper and the Central American. When early in the 16th century the Spaniards found their way from the West India Islands to this part of the mainland of America, they came in view of nations cultured high above the level they had hitherto met with in the New World. Here were not rude and simple tribes like the islanders of the Antilles, but nations with organized armies, official administrators, courts of justice, high agriculture and mechanical arts, and, what struck the white men especially, stone buildings whose architecture and sculpture were often of dimensions and elaborateness to astonish the builders and sculptors of Europe. How a population of millions could inhabit a world whose very existence had been till then unknown to geographers and historians, and how its nations could have reached so high a grade of barbaric industry and grandeur, was a problem which naturally excited the liveliest curiosity of scholars, and gave rise to a whole literature. Hernandez and Acosta shared the opinion of their time that the great fossil bones found in Mexico were remains of giants, and it was argued that, as before the deluge there were giants on the earth, there fore Mexico was peopled from the Old World in ante diluvian times. On the other hand the multitude of native American languages suggested that the migration to America took place after the building of the tower of Babel, and Siguenza arrived at the curiously definite result that the Mexicans were descended from Naphtuhim, son of Mizraim and grandson of Noah, who left Egypt for Mexico shortly after the confusion of tongues. Although such speculations have fallen out of date, it is to be remembered in their favour that they were stepping-stones to more valid argument ; especially they induced the collection of native traditions and invaluable records of races, languages, and customs, which otherwise would have been lost for ever. Even in the present century Lord Kingsborough was led to spend a fortune in printing a magnificent compilation of Mexican picture-writings and documents in his Antiquities of Mexico by his zeal to prove the theory advocated by Garcia a century earlier, that the Mexicans were the lost tribes of Israel. Real information as to the nations of Mexico before Spanish times is very imperfect, but not altogether want ing. It is derived partly from inspection of the natives themselves, their languages and customs, which may be now briefly considered, before going on to the recollections handed down in the native picture-writings and oral tradi tions. The remarks made by the accurate and experienced observer Alexander von Humboldt, who had seen more American tribes than almost any traveller, are still entitled to the greatest weight. He considered the native Americans of both continents to be substantially similar in race-characters. Such a generalization will become sounder if, as is now generally done by anthropolo gists, the Eskimo with their pyramidal skulls, dull complexion, and flat noses are removed into a division by themselves. Apart from these polar nomads, the American indigenes group roughly into a single race or division of mankind, of course with local variations. If our attention is turned to the natives of Mexico especi ally, the unity of type will be found particularly close. The native population of the plateau of Mexico, mainly Aztecs, may still be seen by thousands without any trace of mixture of European blood ; and the following description may give a fair idea of their appearance. 1 Their stature is somewhat low, estimated about 5 feet 3 inches, but they are of muscular and sturdy build. Measurements of their skulls show them mesocephalic (index about 78), or inter mediate between the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic (narrow and wide skulled) types of mankind. The face is oval, with low forehead, high cheek-bones, long eyes sloping outward towards the temples, fleshy lips, nose wide and in some cases flattish but in others aquiline, coarsely moulded features, with a somewhat stolid and gloomy expression. Thickness of skin, masking the muscles, has been thought the cause of a peculiar heaviness in the out lines of body and face ; the complexion varies from yellow- brown to chocolate (about 40 to 43 in the anthropological 1 References may be found in Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. i. pp. 24, 573 618, 646.