18,250 feet) and the Cofre de Perote
(13,400 feet), on the border of the State of Vera Cruz, descend to
high-spreading tablelands, watered only by the snows of these
mountains, as they are riverless. The beautiful valley wherein the
capital city of Puebla is situated, some short distance to the east of
Popocatepetl and its sister peak, is, however, traversed by the
remarkable river Atoyac which, rising beyond the borders of the state,
forms the headwaters of the great Balsas river, debouching, after a
trajectory of more than four hundred miles, into the Pacific.

[Illustration: TYPICAL SIDE STREET IN MEXICAN VILLAGE: THE TOWN OF
AMECA AND CLOUD-EFFECT ON POPOCATEPETL.]

The area of this state is 12,200 square miles, sustaining more than a
million inhabitants. Agriculture, and industries and manufacture
depending thereon are the source of wealth and property; mining
occupies a relatively small place, although minerals abound, and onyx
and coal are famous among them. The valley of Puebla draws its varied
sources of life largely from the Atoyac river, whose hydrographic basin
forms a fertile region probably superior to any in the Republic. Level
tracts of land and undulating valleys are irrigated freely from this
river, giving huge crops of cereals, and numerous mills producing
textile fabrics are actuated by the water-power it affords. The slopes
of the mountains to the north are covered with forests whose stores of
timber are a little-exploited source of wealth at present. The
southerly region forms a tropical zone where the products corresponding
to its climate abound--as cotton, coffee, sugar-cane, and others. Here
the state extends to the borders of Guerrero and Oaxaca.

The city of Puebla is the second in the Republic and contains nearly
95,000 inhabitants. It is an important seat of Mexican civilisation, of
which the Republic is justly proud and, indeed, its state of prosperity
and consequent advanced civilisation are noteworthy. The productions of
the numerous industries and factories in the district are exported to
all the main centres of the Republic, especially the textile fabrics,
and also to Central and South American countries. The central portion
of the state is traversed by several main lines of railway, as the
International and the Mexico and Vera Cruz, whilst the Mexican Southern
unites it with Oaxaca and the Tehuantepec Railway. The archaeological
remains of Cholula--the prehistoric ruins elsewhere des