Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/520

478 NICARAGUA Panaloya (Tipitapa) l down to the lower basin. It does not appear to have undergone any perceptible change of level since the conquest ; but some of its former feeders have probably been displaced by the violent earthquakes, of which this region is a chief centre. Thus the present inflow, except during high floods, is mainly carried off by evaporation. But the larger lake continues to receive the important Rio Frio from Costa Rica at its south-eastern extremity, besides numerous perennial streams, especially from the western slopes of the Cordillera de los Andes. Hence there is an abundant discharge through the Rio San Juan, a deep, sluggish stream 128 miles long, from 100 to 400 yards broad, 10 to 20 feet deep, but unfortunately obstructed by five dangerous rapids presenting insuperable obstacles to steam navigation. 2 The lake itself is the largest fresh-water basin between Michigan and Titicaca, being nearly 100 miles long by 40 broad and 240 feet deep in some places, but shoaling considerably, especially towards the outlet, where it falls to 6 or 8 feet. Under the influence of the intermittent trade winds it rises and falls regularly towards the south side, whence the popular notion that it was a tidal lake. It is also exposed to the dangerous Papagayos tornadoes, caused by the prevailing north-easterly winds meeting opposite currents from the Pacific. The little-known region of rugged plateaus and savan nas occupying fully one-half of the state between the lacustrine depression and the Mosquito Coast is watered by several unnavigable streams, all draining from the Cordilleras eastwards to the Atlantic, and all distinguished by a perplexing nomenclature. The chief are, coming southwards, the Coco (Wanks or Segovia, known in its upper course as the Telpaneca), the Wama (Sisin Creek), the Rio Grande (Great River or Amaltara), the Escondida (Bluefields, Blewfields, Rio del Desastre). Geology. From the general relief of the land, as above set forth, its geological constitution is sufficiently obvious. In the west we have the lavas, tufas, sulphurs, pumice, and other recent volcanic formations of the Maribios system. These are succeeded east of the lacustrine basin by andesite rocks, trachytes, greenstone, and metalliferous porphyries of the Cordilleras, abounding in auriferous and argentiferous quartz, especially in Chontales and the uplands of north west Segovia. Then come the older plutonic upheavals, crystallized schists, dolerites, &c., apparently stretching down to the Mosquito Coast region, where they appear to underlie the comparatively modern sedimentary formations and alluvia of the streams flowing eastwards to the Caribbean Sea. The Chontales gold mines, which have been intermittently worked for many years past, lie about midway between the Atlantic and Pacific between 1 1 and 13 N. lat. and 85 and 86 W. long., and the mining industry is centred chiefly about Libertad, capital of Chontales, and Santo Domingo in the Matagalpa district. 1 According to Baily s survey this emissary is 16 miles long, with a fall of 7 inches per mile, and a depth of 6 to 12 feet during the rains, but at other times often quite dry. Other writers have represented it as completely interrupted by a break or ridge 4 miles wide in the centre, over which no water now ever flows from the upper lake (Boyle, i. p. 249). Frobel also states that since the earthquake of 1835 the channel has been closed, although J. M. Caceres, a native of Nicaragua, positively asserts that the two basins still communicate (Centra- America, Paris, 1880, p. 60). 2 It is often asserted that these rapids were artificially formed by the Spaniards themselves to prevent the buccaneers from penetrating to Lake Nicaragua. But Herrera (Dec. in., book 2, chap. 3) speaks of the "great rocks and falls" which prevented Cordova, the first circumnavigator of the lake, from descending the San Juan in 1522. On the other hand, the English traveller Gage tells us that in his time (17th century) vessels reached Granada direct from Spain. Nevertheless there can be little doubt that the rapids are natural obstructions, representing all that now remains of the Cordilleras which have at this point been pierced by the San Juan. There is very little gold washing in any of the eastern streams, the metal being found almost exclusively in the quartz lodes, which run generally east and west in close parallel lines, varying in thickness from 2 or 3 to 20 feet, and in productiveness from a few pennyweights to 2 or 3 ounces per ton. The chief silver mines are those of Matagalpa and Dipilto towards the Honduras frontier, but the total annual yield of the precious metals seldom exceeds 40,000. Lying at a mean elevation of 2000 to 3000 feet above Climate, sea-level, the Chontales and Segovian uplands enjoy a mild climate, generally healthy and well-suited for European constitutions. But elsewhere the climate is distinctly tropical, with two seasons wet from May to November, dry throughout the winter months and a mean annual temperature of about 80 Fahr., falling to 70 at night and rising to 90 at noon in summer. Nicaragua comes within the zone of the wet north-east trade winds, which sweep inland from the Atlantic, unintercepted by any great elevations till they reach the lofty Ometepec and Madera peaks. Hence the heaviest rainfall occurs along the west side of the lacustrine basin, with an annual mean at Rivas of 102 inches. Elsewhere the summer rainfall is about 90, the winter from 8 to 10 inches. The flat, low- lying Mosquito region being exposed to the inundations of the numerous streams from the Cordilleras, and to the exhalations from the stagnant waters of the coast lagoons, is very malarious, and the fever here endemic is especially fatal to Europeans. In the volcanic western provinces the soil is extremely fertile, Vegeta- yielding, where cultivated and irrigated, magnificent crops of sugar, tion. cotton, rice, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, and maize. Much indigo was produced here formerly from an indigenous variety, the Indigofera, disperma, L., but this industry has been neglected since the revolu tion. Sugar yields two or three crops, and maize as many as four, this cereal supplying a chief staple of food. Plantains, bananas, beans, tomatoes, yams, arrowroot, pine-apples, guavas, citrons, and many other tropical fruits are also cultivated, while the exten sive primeval forests of the central provinces abound in mahogany, cedars, rosewood, ironwood, caoutchouc (ule), gum copal, vanilla, sarsaparilla, logwood, and many other dye-woods, medicinal plants, and valuable timbers. Conspicuous amongst the forest trees is the splendid Coyol palm (Cocos butyracea, L.), with feathery leaves 15 to 20 feet long and golden flowers 3 feet, and yielding a sap which when fermented produces the intoxicating chicha or vino de Coyol. In Chontales occurs the remarkable Hcrrania purpurea, a " choco late tree," whose seeds yield a finer-flavoured chocolate than the cocoa itself. The forest growths are on the whole inferior in size to those of corresponding latitudes in the eastern hemisphere ; the tropical vegetation, especially about Nindiri and elsewhere in the west, is unsurpassed for beauty, exuberance, and variety. The Nicaraguan fauna differs in few respects from that of the Fauna, other Central-American states. Here the jaguar, puma, and ocelot still infest all the wooded districts, alligators swarm in the lakes and in the San Juan and other rivers, while the vulture, buzzard, toucans, humming birds, and howling monkeys are almost every where familiar sights. Amongst the endless species of reptiles occur the harmless boba or "chicken snake," python, and black snake, the venomous corali, taboba, culebra de sangre, and rattlesnake, iguanas of great size, scorpions, edible lizards, and others said to be poisonous (Boyle). Of useful animals by far the most important are the horned cattle, large herds of which are bred on the savannas of the central and northern provinces. Their hides Trade, form one of the staples of the export trade, the other chief items of which are gold and silver bullion, coffee, and gums, amounting to a yearly sum of about 400,000, against 300,000 imports, mainly European and United States manufactured goods. 3 From the numerous sepulchral mounds, monumental ruins, and Pre- other remains thickly strewn over Chontales and all the western historic provinces, as well as from the direct statements of the early remains. Spanish writers, it appears that most of Nicaragua was densely peopled at the time of the conquest. In many districts colossal monolithic statues of men and gods, crumbling temples, cairns, and tombs of all sizes are met in every direction, and in some places the inhabitants still supply themselves with pottery from the vast quantities of fictile vessels preserved below the surface, or piled up 3 The exports in 1880 amounted to 411,500, the imports to 295,000. For the same year the revenue was 487,000, the expenditure rather more; the public debt was 700,000.