On the day following the visit to the church of Guadalupe Doctor Bronson was occupied with some business matters that rendered his movements somewhat uncertain. Frank and Fred thought it a good opportunity to make some statistical notes about Mexico which they had been for some time contemplating, but had postponed in consequence of there being no hurry about the matter. The figures were at hand whenever they chose to use them, and so they had no anxiety on the subject.
INDIAN OF NORTHERN MEXICO.
"First," said Fred, "we will see the extent of the country, learn how large the population is, and of what it is composed."
"Very well," was Frank's reply; "you may put down the figures and other memoranda as I read them off."
The youths settled down to their work, Fred at table with note-book and pencil, and Frank with an array of books before him. For an hour or two their heads were, as Dr. Holmes says, "ant-hills of units and tens," as we shall see from the following, which they have permitted us to copy:
"Mexico lies between the 15th and 33d parallels of latitude, and the 86th and 117th meridians of longitude. Its greatest length is only a trifle less than 2000 miles, and its greatest width 750 miles. At the Isthmus of Tehuantepec it narrows to 140 miles; and this is the place where Captain Eads proposed to make a railway for transporting ships from one ocean to the other. We'll have something to say about this proposition in another place.
"We cannot find that there has ever been an exact survey of the country or a careful census of the inhabitants. No two authorities agree concerning the area and population; but an average of the best of them shows that the country measures about 800,000 square miles, and has 10,500,000 inhabitants. It is divided into twenty-seven States, one Territory, and one federal district; the federal district includes the capital city, and may be regarded as the equivalent of the District of Columbia in the United States, though it is much larger in area.