Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/37

Rh are sufficiently formed to dispense moisture on their passage to the ocean. As the Eastern branch of the Cordillera disappears, or rather recedes towards the West, the space fertilized by these streams becomes more extensive; until in Texas, a country low, but well wooded, and rich in beautiful rivers, takes the place of the dreary Steppes of the interior.

The Rio Grande de Sāntĭāgŏ, which traverses the Băxīŏ, and empties itself into the Pacific, near San Blas, and the Rio Bravo del Norte, which enters the Gulph of Mexico in 26 North lat., are the two principal rivers of the Table-land: the last, indeed, hardly merits that title, as it pursues its course over a part of the country where the Eastern Cordillera is lost; but the first rises in the very centre of Mexico, and the district through which it passes is amongst the richest of the known world.

Humboldt gives 25 degrees of the centigrade thermometer (or 76 of Farenheit) as the mean heat of the coast, and 17° centigrade (64 Farenheit) as that of the Table-land. But, in a country so extensive as Mexico, any general theory upon this subject must be liable to great exceptions. A situation, so sheltered as to give additional force to the reflected rays of the sun, or too much exposed to the winds of the North-west, which sweep the country, at times, with incredible violence; a