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800 YUCATAN Laguna de Terminos. A most remarkable fea- ture of Yucatan is the number and magnitude of its subterranean rivers. The climate, though generally very hot, is on the whole salubrious, except on the gulf coast, which is periodically visited by yellow fever. The seasons are but two, the dry from October to May, and the wet embracing the remaining months. Most of the interior is covered with dense forests, rich in many varieties of precious woods, in- cluding mahogany and rosewood. The soil in the south and east is of great fertility, yield- ing abundant crops of maize, pulse, rice, indi- go, tobacco, coffee, vanilla, sugar cane, and, above all, the precious henequen or pita plant, which furnishes Sisal hemp. Copal and other resins and gums are plentiful. The chief oc- cupations are agriculture and cattle rearing, the manufacture of coarse cotton fabrics and of various articles of henequen, and fishing. The evidences of a higher civilization possessed by the race who originally inhabited Yucatan are abundant and interesting. The ruins of Uxmal, Chichen, Izamal, Mayapan, &c., have been explored by Stephens and other archae- ologists. Those of Uxmal, the most remarka- ble, are situated about 50 m. S. S. W. of Meri- da. They comprise numerous massive lime- stone structures built on broad terraced plat- forms, and all highly ornamented. The largest single building, called the " governor's house," has a front of 322 ft., and contains 24 rooms. The most beautiful structure is the "house of the nuns," composed of four ranges enclosing a large courtyard, with 88 apartments. The "house of the dwarf," on a very steep mound 88 ft. high, was a teoealli for human sacrifices. But little, if anything definite, is known of the uses of the temples and other vast edi- fices, which, from their size and profuse orna- mentation in carved and colored figures and bassi rilievi, are even in their ruined state among the most wonderful architectural relics in the western world. Nor does any certainty exist relative to the building of the edifices and cities, though Morelet, Orozco y Berra, and some others contend that they could only have been constructed by the Toltecs. (See CHIOHEX.) Juan Diaz de Solis and Vicente Yafiez Pinzon are said to have discovered the E. coast of Yucatan in 1506 ; but the first Eu- ropean who visited its shores was Francisco Fernandez de Cordova, in 1517. The con- quest of the country, carried on successively by Cordova, Juan de Grijalva, and Francisco de Montejo, was completed by the son of the last named in 1541 ; and Yucatan, at first named New Spain (a name afterward applied to the whole territory which still later was called Mexico), belonged to Spain till 1821. After more than three years of independence, it was united to Mexico in 1824 ; it was again inde- pendent from 1840 to 1843, and from 1846 to 1852; and it has since belonged to Mexico, first as a single state till 1858, and afterward as two states, Yucatan and Cam peachy. YUMA YUCATAN, a maritime state of Mexico, oc- cupying the N. E. portion of the peninsula of Yucatan; area, 32,658 sq. m. ; pop. in 1869, 422,365, mostly Maya Indians. The state is divided into 15 districts, viz. : M6rida, Motul, Izamal, Valladolid, Espita, Tizimin, Ticul, So- tuta, T ekax, Peto, Maxcanu, Temax, Tixkokob, Hanucma, and Acanceh. The capital is M6ri- da. Public instruction is here in a flourishing condition, there being a literary institute, pri- vate colleges, academies, and lyceums, schools of law, medicine, and pharmacy, and in 1869 154 primary schools, with an attendance of 7,493, of whom 1,388 were females. Since that time it is estimated that the attendance at the primary schools has increased by 25 per cent. The manufactures are very prosperous, com- prising cotton fabrics, cigars and cigarettes, rum, refined sugar, molasses, cordage and oth- er articles from the pita plant or henequen, leather, soap, Panama hats, &c. The chief articles of export are Sisal hemp, cordage, leather, deer skins, salt, Panama hats, cattle, hides, and indigo. The mean annual value of the foreign commerce, almost exclusively carried on through Progreso, the port of M6- rida, on the gulf of Mexico, is about $2,000,000 ; rather more than two thirds being with the United States, one fourth with Havana, and the remainder with France and England. The port of Progreso is visited twice monthly by the steamers of the New York and Vera Cruz line ; and the total annual tonnage, including sailing vessels, is about 60,000. A railway from M6rida to Valladolid is in course of con- struction (1876), and there are in the state about 500 m. of telegraph wires. YUKON RIVER. See ALASKA, vol. i., p. 240. YULE, Henry, an English author, born about 1810. He joined the army in India, became colonel of the royal engineers, Bengal, and now lives in London. His works include "Fortifi- cation " (1851) ; " Narrative of the Mission sent by the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava," to which he had been attached (4to, 1858) ; "Cathay, and the Way thither," a col- lection of mediaaval notices of China, trans- lated and edited with an essay (Hakluyt soci- ety, 2 vols., London, 1866) ; "The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the King- doms and Marvels of the East," newly trans- lated (2 vols., London, 1871 ; 2d ed., revised, enlarged, and illustrated, 1875); "Papers con- nected with the Upper Oxus Regions " (" Jour- nal of the Royal Geographical Society," 1872) ; annotations included in E. D. Morgan's trans- lation of Preyevalski's "Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Thi- bet " (2 vols., 1876) ; and an introductory essay on central Asia appended to Wood's " Journey to the Oxus" (1876). YUMA, the S. W. county of Arizona, bounded S. by Mexico, separated from California and Lower California on the west by the Colorado river, and intersected by the Gila ; area, about 10,000 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 1,621. The val-