Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/741



T is proposed to here ask attention to the results of a recent investigation and study of Mexico, with the intent of exhibiting its economic relations to the United States, and of helping to determine the desirability of the ratification on the part of the latter of a Mexico-American commercial treaty. The basis for this investigation and for such opinions as may be expressed has been: First, a somewhat extended exploration of Mexico, undertaken during the early months of the past year (1885), primarily with a view to health and recreation; and, secondly, a subsequent careful study (prompted by interest in what had been personally seen or heard) of the physical situation and history of the country, and its present political, industrial, and social condition. The journey, it may be further premised, was mainly made upon a special train, over the whole length of the Mexican Central Railroad, over most of the Vera Cruz and City of Mexico and over a part of the Mexican National Railroads; the aggregate distance traversed within the territory of the republic being in excess of three thousand miles, the train running upon its own time, with its own equipment for eating and sleeping, and stopping long enough at every point of interest—city, town, hacienda, mine, or desert—to admit of its full and satisfactory exploration. It is safe, therefore, to say that such an opportunity for leisurely visiting and studying so much of Mexico had rarely, if ever, before been granted.