Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/96

 That of the Columbia River of Oregon is the highest up. Then, 600 miles south, comes San Francisco; 441 miles below this is San Diego; 650 miles farther on, in a direct line, or 936, doubling Cape St. Lucas, is Topolobampo; and 740 miles south of this again is Acapulco. Between them all there is nothing worthy the name of harbor.

Topolobampo city, within the confines of the state of Sinaloa, exists only on paper as yet, but nothing is more impressive in its elegant regularity and finish than a paper city. It claims to be 800 miles nearer New York than San Francisco by railroad travel, and that a person coming from Liverpool to Sydney, Australia, would save 600 miles in laying out a course from Fernandina, Florida, by New Orleans and Topolobampo, which is indicated as a route of the future. If some of these representations be correct, no doubt it will be. We live in times of a ruthless commercial greed which is stopped by no sentimental considerations of vested rights and convenience. We have but to see a short, through line, with possible economies, to build it with all possible despatch. The road in question is to start from Piedras Negras, on the frontier of Texas, and make for Topolobampo, across the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora, with branches to Presidio del Norte, also on the Texas frontier, and to Alamos, in Sonora, and the port of Mazatlan, down the coast. These routes pass near, and would greatly facilitate operations in some of the large silver-mining districts, of late entered with success by American capital and immigration. The reports of its surveys chronicle an engaging prospect in various other ways. It passes from belts of tropical products to those of white pine, oak, and cedar, and others fitted for cereals,