Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/365

Rh ;—and at Petic, forty leagues north north-east from Guyamas, in about 29° 20' of north latitude. The latter town, containing about 8,000 inhabitants, is the depot for goods imported through the port of Guyamas which are designed for the northern districts of Mexico. Besides these two important places, there are the towns of San Miguel Horcasitas, with 2,500 inhabitants; Arispe, with 3,000; San José de Guyamas 350 to 400; Bayoreca; Onabas; Presidio de Buena Vista; El Aguage; Ures; Babiacora; Banamitza; Batuc; Matape; Oposura; Presidio de Bavispe; Presidio de Fronteras; San Ildefonso Cieneguilla; Presidio de Santa Gertrudis del Altar; Oquitoa; Presidio de la Santa Cruz; Presidio de Tuscon; and Presidio de Tubac.

The mineral characteristics are similar to those of Sinaloa.

The Territory of Lower California is comprehended in that long peninsular strip of land which extends from the present southern boundary of the United States to Cape St. Lucas, and which is washed on the east by the Gulf of California from the point where the Rio Colorado debouches into it, and on the west by the waves of the Pacific ocean. It lies between 32° 31' 59" 58'", and Cape St. Lucas, in about 22° 45' of north latitude.

The country, generally, is represented to be one of the most unattractive in the warm or temperate regions. The peninsula, about 700 miles long, varies in breadth from thirty to one hundred miles, its mean breadth being about fifty. The surface of this region is formed of an irregular chain of rocks, hills and mountains, which run throughout the central portion of its whole length, and some of which attain a height of nearly five thousand feet. Amid these dreary ridges there are occasionally found a few sheltered spots which, though deluged by the torrents, have not been swept clear of productive earth, and in these there is a fertile soil of small extent, yielding a thin but nutritious grass. There are few streams or springs; trees of magnitude are scarce; and the heavy showers falling on the central rocky peaks and eminences are drained on the east and west into the Pacific and Gulf of California by the sloping sides of the peninsula, so as to bear with them into the sea a large portion of cultivable soil. In the plains and in most of the dry beds of rivers, water can be obtained by digging wells only a few feet deep, and wherever irrigation has been adopted