a landlocked and well-protected harbor.

66

The San Juan River is the most important water Central America, as it forms the outlet through which are d the waters of the great hydraulic system of Lake Nicara which circumstance it was named by the Spaniards guadero." Its navigation is interrupted by rapids and several points. It was, however, used for some years by steamboats of the transit company to carry passengers a between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It is now again and more prominently than ever, to the notice of the wo scene of operations of the Nicaragua Canal Company, use its waters as a part of their system of interoceanic cation.

There are several islands near the Caribbean coast. important of which are St. Andrews, Old Providence, a and Little Corn Islands. These two latter have been c the Mosquito authorities; but, as the treaty of 1860 d Caribbean coast line as the limit of the reservation, raguan Government has ignored their claim and establis on the Great Corn Island and placed an official in char island is situated about 38 miles from Bluefields and 82 Juan del Norte. Banana and cocoanut growing are the that are rendering these islands valuable.

POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND POPULATION.

When the "kingdom" of Guatemala was definitely organized, in 1568, Nicaragua formed one of its five provinces and was in turn divided into seven departments, called Realejo, Granada, Nicaragua, Matagalpa, Monimbo, Chontales, and Quezaltepeque. Under the ordinances published by Charles III in 1778, the province of Nicaragua was divided into five political divisions, León, Matagalpa, Realejo, Subtiaba, and Nicoya.

The Republic is now divided into twelve departments: Chinandega, León, Managua, Masaya, Granada, Carazo, Rivas, Chontales, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Nueva Segovia, and Esteli.

Nicaragua, enjoying all the richest gifts of nature, presenting an ever-varying panorama of mountain and valley, broad plains, and fertile valleys, forest and pasture land, lake and river, with a productive soil and salubrious climate, provided conditions eminently favorable for sustaining a vast population and bringing together great communities of the aboriginal people. That this was the case, is amply proved by the testimony of the ancient chroniclers. As was asserted by Las Casas, it was one of the bestpeopled countries of Central America.

Those same early historians tell us how its inhabitants were decimated by war, slavery, torture, and pestilence until but a remnant remained of its once teeming population. Indeed, so rapidly were they reduced in numbers that, in the year 1586, negro slavery was introduced by Governor Diego de Artieda to supply the demand for laborers, and it continued to be a legalized institution until April, 1824, when it was abolished by act of the Congress of the Republic of Central America, and the owners were compensated by the payment of the money value of their slaves.

The present population of the Republic, according to the census of 1890, is 360,000 inhabitants (16,200 white, 198,000 Indians, 1,800 negroes, and 144,000 of mixed races), little more than 8 to the square mile. How inadequate this is for the development of

the resources of the country and how much smaller than the number it would comfortably maintain, may be estimated by a comparison with the population of four Commonwealths of the United States which closely correspond in area to Nicaragua, viz: Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which contain, on the same space of the earth's surface, nearly 4,000,000 of inhabitants. In Nicaragua, as throughout Central America, females exceed the males in number.

The Indians, who form the bulk of the laboring inhabitants, are docile and industrious, and form an excellent rural population, free to labor for their own benefit or for others, as their inclination or interest may dictate. Most of the people in the rural districts live in towns and villages, necessitating, in many instances, a journey of several miles to and from their field of labor. This has arisen largely from the necessity for mutual protection during times of disturbance through which the country has passed. This fact frequently induces travelers when passing through the country to estimate the population to be even more scanty than it really is, as they may pass, at times, many miles without seeing a house and meeting but few people.

Many schemes have been from time to time proposed to secure immigration, but none have yet proved successful on any considerable scale; but, while the Government has been seeking a solution of the problem, the march of events has steadily tended to show that it will settle itself as soon as facilities are provided for transporting the products of the country to the ports of the Atlantic seaboard and the improvement of the ports by deepening the bars at the mouths of the rivers is effected. Whenever these conditions are fulfilled, giving access to the markets of the world for the products of their labor, immigrants will flow in as they have done in other parts of Central and South America.

Chapter II.

GEOLOGY, MINERALS, AND MINING.*

Geologically, Nicaragua may be divided into five zones, differing from each other in many characteristics.

The first or central division extends from southwest to northeast in direction. Its rocks are composed of granite, gneiss, sandstone, porphyry, slate, quartzite, limestone, and hornblende, and it contains large deposits of titanic iron ore and graphite. The Laurentian rocks occupy the center of the northern part of the division, while rocks of later age overlie them on the west and east. Devonian rocks rest unconformably upon the Silurian. They consist of marls, coarse and gritty shale, and red sandstone. These rocks resemble those of Scotland more closely than similar formations in the State of New York. In of this division are many fisparts sures or lodes, frequently having walls of diabase or diorite, or one of these and slate, which have gold deposited in them, or they include veins of the ores of silver, tin, nickel, antimony, arsenic, etc. In a few places platinum, iridium, and osmium are found in creeks, mixed with the gangue of mineral veins, from which they have been removed by erosion and transported to the creeks by ancient glacial action or water. Many of these veins are very rich in the precious metals.

A few of the peaks on these mountain ranges are the highest in Nicaragua, from 6,500 to 6,700 feet above the ocean level. At several places in the mountains are areas of nearly flat table-lands called "mesas," from 9 to 20 square miles in superficial dimensions.

*For recent developments in mining in Nicaragua, see report of U. S. Consul Newell, Appendix E.

They are inclosed almost completely by peaks and ridges, which rise to a height of from 100 to 500 feet, and have nearly perpendicular external walls, intersected in places by cañons through which the rain waters find their way to the streams which flow into the Caribbean Sea. A few ancient extinct volcanic cones and fissures can be seen, and some mineral springs are found, having temperatures of from 131° to 215° F.

The second division is a narrow annex on the east of the division' just described, and extends to within about 100 miles of the Caribbean coast. Its mountain system is monogenetic, forming isolated cones, short ridges, and long valleys, all from 1,000 to 2,800 feet above sea level. There are many dry beds of ancient rivers, traceable for many miles, along which are small hills. Those near the old river, north of the river Prinzapulca, consist of iron clay slates and partly stratified fragments of chlorite and talcose slates; quartz, pebbles, sands, and occasionally clays, interspersed with numerous small and a few large particles of gold. Fifteen miles north of the Indian village of Wylowas, on the Prinzapulka River, the old river channel and its valleys contain very rich gold placers. Another large placer, very rich in gold, is found in the bed of a pre-glacial river, on the southeast side of and near the river Eas, a confluent of the river Tooma. Among the rocks of this division are Lower Carboniferous limestones, Permian magnesian limestones, red sandstones, and variegated shales. In the Laramie, brown coal or lignite is found, and in the Cretaceous formations, volitic rocks and clays, gypsum, salt, and slightly metamorphosed sandstones. At several places mountain limestone of the Lower Carboniferous forms the outcropping eastern margin of the rocks. At some localities there are long groups of hills and ridges which are evidently terminal moraines referable to a glacial epoch in Nicaragua contemporaneous with a similar era in North America. Numerous mineral springs have been discovered in this uninhabited part of Nicaragua. The waters are cool, except in one case, where the water has a temperature of 120° F.