with the last collector, the grand canal, which was to have its debouchure at the Ametlac tunnel. The work is yet unaccomplished, although on the drainage of the valley depends the health of the inhabitants of the capital. The city of Mexico is cradled on a subterranean lake,[1] ever emitting poisonous exhalations. The mortality is excessive, and seems to be increasing.[2]
Maize, or Indian corn, constitutes the principal article of food, and its cultivation, in later years, has become most important in the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan, Oajaca, Puebla, and Vera Cruz. About the middle of the present century, great uncertainty as to the yield of the crops in different localities is noticeable, and while in one place corn would be selling for almost its weight in gold, at another it would be so abundant as to be used as food for hogs. The main reason of this great difference was the difficulty of transportation.[3] During later years, the increase in the production of maize has been prodigious, its value in 1879 amounting to $112,164,424, representing about five eighths of the total product of the country.[4]
- ↑ The bed of Lake Texcuco is gradually rising, owing to the deposits of sedimentary matter. In Humboldt's time its greatest depth was 16 ft 8 in.; in 1882 its normal depth in the rainy season was only 6 ft 8 inches. Humboldt's statement has been contested on the ground that it was given without precision, Orozco y Berra, in Soc. Mex. Geog., ix. 466-7; but Garay, after a series of observations which extended over a period of 14 years, found that the mean rise of the bed of the lake was 1.6 in. annually, which verified Humboldt's statement. Drainage of Valley of Mex., 14-15. The result of this rising of the bottom of the lake is that the water percolates underground. The last-mentioned author says: 'It is true that the waters do not cover permanently our valley, but they spread stealthily under our feet and rise almost to the surface of the ground to poison the air we breathe.' Id., 17.
- ↑ At this time the annual death-rate exceeds 14,000, whereas 15 or 20 years previously it was only half that number. Mex. Financier, May 9, 1885, p. 86.
- ↑ Sixty years ago, maize sold in the capital at from two to three dollars the fanega, the price in the country being only three or four reales. At the mines of Guanajuato alone, 14,000 mules were daily fed on this grain and the straw produced from the dried leaves and stalks. In other mining districts the consumption was in proportion. Failure of the crop was a dire calamity, and affected the mining interest as much as the price of quicksilver.
- ↑ Jalisco and Guanajuato produced nearly one fourth. Busto, Estad. Rep. Mex., i., Cuad. Agric., no. 30.
