valuable of the two, not only on account of its inexhaustible supply of silver, but also on account of its delightful climate and agricultural resources. It is like the land of the blessed in Oriental story. California does not surpass it in fertility or in climate. With industry and thrift, it could sustain a population equal to that of all Mexico. The table-lands and the valleys are so near together that the products of all climates flourish almost side by side. Food for man and beast was so easily procured that the descendants of the early settlers sunk into effeminacy long before the breaking out of the great Apache war of the last century. Drought, however, makes the formation of artificial lakes and reservoirs necessary to the full development of its agricultural wealth.
CHIHUAHUA AND SONORA.
But it is the remarkable abundance of silver which distinguishes it above all other countries except Chihuahua. I have described, in a former chapter, the long and laborious processes by which silver is produced from the ore in the southern mines, and also the great depths from which it is raised. In Sonora, silver is most commonly extracted from the ore by the simple process of fusion. But in the district of Batopilos, it is, or rather was, found pure. If we should adopt the theory that veins of ore extend through the entire length of Mexico, then I should say that they "crop out" in Sonora, or, rather, that the silver lodes which are here above the surface dip toward the city of Mexico, and also northward toward California. The mountain chain which traverses California under the name of the Sierra Nevada appears to be only a continuation or reappearance of the mountain chain here called Sierra Madre (Mother Range), which forms the boundary between the departments of Sonora and Chihuahua.