344. Demonstration Aneroid Barometer. Consists Send for Scientific Catalog 21-S E.W.A.ROWLES CO. MANUFACTURERS. SCHOOL FURNITURE AND SUPPLIES CHICAGO, ILL. Please mention School Science and Mathematics when answering Advertisements. its Pacific coast is nearly a thousand miles longer than that of the United States exclusive of Alaska. "But though Mexico has an area of great extent, what may be called the real Mexico is much smaller. Throughout the history of Mexico, both before the coming of the Spanish conquerors and since, the culture of the country and its center of population have been on the great central plateau which rises between the two oceans, and particularly in the south central part of that region. A section there occupying not more than one-sixth of the country contains nearly two-thirds of the total population. This portion of the country, of which the Valley of Mexico and the City of Mexico are near the center, has a delightful climate. Blankets are used at night the year round, but seldom at any time of the year is an overcoat needed at midday. "The northern portion of Mexico is largely occupied by deserts. The southern section is tropical-a country of steamy moisture and jungles. Both coasts are hot and unpleasant throughout a large part of their extent. It is natural enough, therefore, that the central plateau has played an important part in the country's history. FEW CITIES AND MANY VILLAGES. "Mexico is essentially a rural country. Mexico City, the capital, with its million inhabitants, is the only city of large size within the country's borders. Between the metropolis and the next largest city, Guadalajara, is a great gulf, for the latter with its population of 120,000 is only the size of Nashville, Tenn., or Salt Lake City. Monterey, the greatest city of northern Mexico, and third in the country, is approximately the size of Harrisburg, El Paso, or San Diego. San Louis Potosi is the size of South Bend, Ind.; while Vera Cruz, the greatest port of the Republic and fifth city, is smaller than Tampa, Florida, or Charleston, S. C. Salina Cruz and the other Pacific ports are little more than villages with extensive docks. As a rule the cities of Mexico are not manufacturing centers but derive what importance they possess from being the markets for the surrounding agricultural country or mining regions. "While Mexico is largely agricultural, and therefore rural, its country life is strikingly different from that with which farm-bred residents of the United States are familiar. Seldom is an isolated farmhouse to be found; most of the tillers of the soil live in little villages and go back and forth to their work, usually on the land of others. These innumerable villages give one the impression of being standardized and are difficult to tell apart. They are made up of low, rectangular flat-topped huts of mud bricks or adobe, and are huddled closely together. Between the forbidding walls of these tomb-like dwellings, the tropic sun beats down on a narrow, dusty street. "In addition to these more or less independent villages of the common people there are to be found in parts of the country the haciendas or great ranches of the landed proprietors, on which are other groups of the inevitable flat-roofed huts, the dwellings of the ranch's peons. In the hot country of the South are extensive plantations of bananas, rubber trees, cacao and other special tropical products. These plantations are often operated by foreigners, and on them small armies of day laborers are employed. THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN "MELTING POT." "Because Mexico for hundreds of thousands of years has formed a bridge between North and South America, it had become something of a 'melting pot' before the United States took up that role. And after the arrival of the European conquerors the racial mixture was made still more complex by the addition of Spanish blood. In the Mexico of WITH SPENCER DELINEASCOPE is made perfect because it is an IDEAL STEREOPTICON for both lantern slides and opaque objects, such as pictures, post-cards, reading matter and objects of all kinds dead and alive. IDEAL, because it embodies basic ideas (patented) possessed by no other. Example: Mechanical means of handling the slides, which does away with the antiquated lanternslide holder and at the same time gives a "dissolving effect" on the screen unattained with other outfits except by using two stereopticons, one above the other. One Spencer Delineascope does it. SPENCER U.S.A. Spencer's Delineascope Model 3 for both lantern slides and SPENCER LENS COMPANY Manufacturers of Microscopes, Microtomes, Delinea scopes, Price $185.00 SPENCER BUFFALO U.S.A. Headquarters for Assay, Bacteriological and Chemi- Amongst our laboratory specialties, we may mention the following: Replaceable Unit Electric Furnaces; Freas Electric Ovens; Barnstead Stills; Wysor Polishing and Grinding Apparatus; Juerst Ebullioscope; Hortvet Cryoscope; Gramercy Reagent Bottles; MacMichael Viscosimeter; Bingham and Green Viscometer and Plastometer; Bausch & Lomb and Spencer Lens Company Microscopes and Microtomes, etc. Write for more detailed information stating your requirements. EIMER & AMEND Established 1851 NEW YORK CITY Third Ave., 18th to 19th St. PITTSBURGH BRANCH 2011 Jenkins Arcade Washington, D. C., Display Room, Suite 601, Evening Star Bldg., Penna. Ave. & 11th St. Please mention School Science and Mathematics when answering Advertisements. today less than 20 per cent of the inhabitants are pure whites, nearly one half are of mixed white and Indian blood, and the remainder are Indians. Many of the Indians and half-breeds constitute a sort of peasantry. "It is estimated that about 7,000 of the 3,000,000 families of Mexico own all the tillable land. Since manufacturing enterprises and commercial pursuits are not sufficient to employ any great proportion of the inhabitants of the country, the great majority of the population must be jobless unless employed on the land of the relatively few landed proprietors. This landlessness of Mexico's masses and the lack of any appreciable middle class has been one of the principal causes of the many revolutions that have torn the country. Efforts have been made from time to time to reform the situation but with little success. The few peons who were given land following the Madero revolution had no training to make them appreciate the value of land ownership and independence. Most of the new land holders promptly sold their holdings cheaply and spent the money realized. "Aboriginal traits cling to the mass of the Mexicans who are such a short distance in time removed from the strange mixture of barbarism and civilization that marked the empire of the Aztecs found by Cortez when he landed on the gulf coast in 1518—a civilization with its human sacrifices in a city carefully policed, and scrupulously kept clean by a corps of trained 'white-wings'; with its refined cannibalism beside an astronomical ability superior to that of the scholars who arranged the Julian calendar; with its institution of slavery the only one known in the world which provided that every child should be born a freeman. They are an artistic people, the Mexicans, apt musicians, modelers, basketmakers, featherworkers, weavers, and metal-workers. GRAVES ONLY RENTED "Poverty brings its tragedy into the deaths as well as into the lives of the masses of the Mexicans. Few are able to buy burial plots, and the custom of merely renting vaults for a short term of years has become general. The lease is often not renewed and the bones are cast on a heap of millions of others to make room for a time for some other unfortunate. "Mexico abounds in holidays. Besides Sundays there is an equal number of saints' days and additional holy and feast days to bring the total to 131 of the 365. "Mexico's large unassimilated Indian population and its even larger population in which Indian traits predominate makes a certain degree of turbulence a natural condition in the Republic south of the Rio Grande. The United States had not so long ago on its frontiers its Indian uprisings, its stage-coach and train robberies, and its 'bad men' with a penchant for 'shooting up' towns. Mexico is still in this stage of development, and because of the heavy Indian element in its population, probably will be there for many years. "The government of Mexico is patterned after that of the United States, but in spirit the scheme has never been closely followed. From 1857, Mexico had one of the most liberal and advanced constitutions in existence, but it was largely a dead letter. In 1917 this constitution was replaced by one decidedly more radical, some of the provisions of which particularly affect missionary activities in the country. All religions were placed on the same footing by the document, but if it were enforced no religious organizations would be permitted to own property, even furnishings and utensils. All religious property was to be taken over by the state and merely left in the custody of churches by sufferance, under the control of the state. that tell the story of life more forcefully than a chapter of print All important stages in the evolution of the specimen are permanently mounted on an opaque glass plate which is enclosed in an hermetically sealed cylinder of heavy, clear glass. The following are now ready for shipment: Chicken, 6 stages......$18.00 9.00 SB Crayfish, 8 stages...... NOTE: For Situs Dissections similarly mounted, and for Life Histories of beneficial and noxious Insects see Catalog 91: Biological Equipment. Cambridge Botanical Supply Co. Laboratory Equipment for all Sciences Biological Send for our latest price list No. 6C. It contains favorable prices on all materials needed in classes of biology, botany or zoology. Prompt Service H. Edw. Hubert 3615 Melpomene St. New Orleans, - La. Please mention School Science and Mathematics when answering Advertisements. |