Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/406





The State of Chihuahua, containing an area of 17,151½ square leagues, or 119,169 English square miles, and reaching from 26° 53' 36" to 32° 57' 43" north latitude, is bounded on the north by New Mexico, east by Coahuila and Texas, south by Durango, south-west by Sinaloa, and north-west by Sonora. The great mountain chain of Mexico, which is the connecting link between the Rocky Mountains of the north and the Andes of the south, is here known as the Sierra Madre, and occupies chiefly the western part of the State, where its elevations attain a vast height, and at length, descend abruptly, cut by deep barrancas or ravines, until they are lost in the plains of Sonora and Sinaloa. Mexican authorities state the highest point of the Sierra Madre, at the Peaks of Jesus Maria, to be 8,441 feet above the level of the sea. The greater portion of Chihuahua consequently lies, like Durango, upon the plateau of Mexico, and only a small part upon the western slope of the Sierra Madre. The loftier elevations of the Cordillera, as it passes upward from Durango, lean towards the west until they pass the centre of Chihuahua, and then bending once more, nearly north, pursue their way through New Mexico into the remote wilderness of our Union. Towards the east these steeps become gradually depressed until they are lost in the vast and uncultivated regions of the Bolson de Mapimi, whose elevation above the sea is still 3,800 feet, according to the measurement of Dr. Wislizenius.