Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/20

10 most cases, stood the test of criticism during near half a century, we may still safely appeal to him, and to his industrious countryman, Muhlenpfordt, as the most reliable authorities upon these topics.

According to Humboldt, Mexico presented a surface of one hundred and eighteen thousand four hundred and seventy-eight square leagues, of twenty-five to the degree, yet this calculation did not include the space between the northern extremity of New Mexico and Sonora, and the American boundary of 1819. Thirty-six thousand five hundred square leagues, comprising the States of Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, Oajaca, Tabasco, Yucatan, Chiapas, were within the torrid zone; while New Mexico, Durango, New and Old California, Sonora and a great part of the old Intendancy of San Luis Potosi, containing in all eighty-six thousand square leagues, were under the temperate zone.

A more recent, and, generally, an accurate writer, has estimated the boundaries of Mexico, prior to the treaty of 1848, at Guadalupe, between the United States and Mexico, to have embraced an area of one million six hundred and fifty thousand square miles, including Texas. By the treaty just mentioned we acquired an undisputed title to Texas, and a territorial cession of New Mexico and Upper California.

If we, therefore, deduct from the preceding estimate of one million six hundred and fifty thousand square miles, the sum of eight hundred and fifty-one thousand five hundred and ninety-eight square miles, we shall have, as the best approximate calculation, that we can now make, seven hundred and ninety-eight thousand four hundred and two square miles, for the total superficial extent of the Republic of Mexico, as at present bounded since the ratification of our recent international treaty. By that negotiation it consequently appears that we have obtained one half the former territory of Mexico and twenty-six thousand five hundred and ninety-eight square miles besides.