Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/553

Rh to-day becoming models of their class. Of paintings by many famous artists, Mexico has her full share, as the viceroys and the wealthy men of the past century adorned convents and churches with many gems of art. The academy of San Carlos in Mexico, contains masterly productions, not only of Mexico's talented sons, but of painters long since famous in the world of art, and sculptures that have received the encomiums even of such critics as the exacting Humboldt.

The scientific world is indebted to Mexico for such illustrious names as Cubas, Orozco y Berra, Mendoza, Blazquez, and Bárcena, shining lights among a host of lesser luminaries. These indefatigable workers, in the National Museum and in the Meteorological Observatory of the capital, have marched with the vanguard of scientific observers. Only those writers ignorant of their labors, and unacquainted with the language in which they publish them, have the temerity to assert that Mexico has produced no men of mark in the realm of thought and original investigation. Their works are a standing refutation to such slanderous statements, and when they shall be collected, and translated into the leading languages of the world, they will form a monument to genius that any nation might well be proud of.

[A. D. 1889.] The foreign debt within the space of four years had been reduced by $88,000,000, and the exportation of merchandise and bullion during the past year had reached the sum of $53,000,000, the largest amount hitherto known. Nine hundred miles of ocean cable were landed at Coatzacoalcos for the Galveston line by the "Faraday," and another railway