The States of Central America; their geography, topography, climate, comprising chapters on Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua ... and the Honduras Inter-Oceanic Railway. With ... maps and illustrations

Front matter

MAP \. H, SHOWING THE PROPOSED ROUTES OF 1NTER0CEANIC COMMUNICATION. DISTANCES. From \ i:\vVokk i.,San I'ii.ini isc lOiSaibng I >,-.<.,,„ ea \i.i TEHUANTEPEC (l) 4569 M.l.s HONDURAS (2) 1360 NICARAGUA ( ,'J ) 4884 " PANAMA ( I ) -,2.-, 1 I I THE STATES OF CENTRAL AMERICA; THEIR GEOGRAPHY, TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, POPULATION, RESOURCES, PRODUCTIONS, COMMERCE, POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, ABORIGINES, ETC., ETC., COMPRISING CHAPTERS ON HONDURAS, SAN SALVADOR, NICARAGUA, COSTA RICA GUATEMALA, BELIZE, THE BAT ISLANDS, THE MOSQUITO SHORE, AND TUE HONDURAS INTER-OCEANIC RAILWAY. BY E. G. SQUIER, * FOEMKRLT CUABOE D'AFFAIRES OF THE UNITED 8TATK8 TO THE BEFUBLIOB OF CENTEAL AMEEIOA. ffl8?ftl> Kumerous ©rfjjfnal ffiaps anS EIlUBtratfons, NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1858. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in theYw>i5Siife***1!fiousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. I

ADVERTISEMENT.

. 1%/TR SQUIEKS "Notes on Central America, etc.," which forms the basis of this more extended work, was published in 1855. It was the first success ful attempt to present the geographical, political, and general data essential to a just understanding of the actual position and resources of Central America. As such, it was speedily translated into the various lan guages of Europe, where it was accepted as a standard authority. Nearly all of the ephemeral works which have since appeared relating to Central America, and professing to convey an idea of the country, have drawn their substantial facts from that volume. It was nev ertheless circumscribed in its scope, relating principal ly to the two states of Honduras and San Salvador. The present volume, however, extended to meet the requirements of the times, has nearly double the amount of matter contained in the "Notes," and embraces ad ditional chapters on Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatema la, Belize, the Bay Islands, and the Mosquito Shore.

Chapter I. Geographical And Topographical Features Of Central America, And Their Influence

ON POPULATION. /CENTRAL AMERICA, in respect of geographical position, almost realizes the ancient idea of the centre of the world. Not only does it connect the two grand divisions of the American continent, the north ern and the southern hemispheres, but its ports open to Europe and Africa on the east, and to Polynesia, Asia, and Australia on the west. Looking at the map, we find, at the Isthmus of Te huantepec, the Gulf of Mexico approaching to within two hundred miles of the Western Ocean, the waters of the River Coatzacoalcos, which flows into the for mer, almost interlocking with those of the Chicapa, flowing into the latter. Below this point the conti nent widens, embracing the high table-lands of Guate mala upon the west, and the broad plains of Tabasco, Chiapa, and Yucatan upon the north and east.

The Gulf or Bay of Honduras, however, closes around this section upon the southeast, and again narrows the con tinent to less than one hundred and fifty miles. The country intervening between this bay and the Pacific is B [Chap. I. CENTRAL AMERICA IN GENERAL. marked by a complete interruption of the Cordilleras, and is traversed by a great transverse valley, running due north and south, through which the large river Ulua finds its way to the Atlantic, and the smaller riv er Goascoran flows into the Bay of Fonseca, on the Pacific. Still lower clown, and passing the grand transverse basin of Nicaragua, is the well-known narrow Isth mus of Panama or Darien, over which the tide of emi gration has twice poured its floods, once upon Peru, and again upon the glittering shores of California. Nor are the topographical characteristics of Central America less remarkable than its geographical features.

In its physical aspect and configuration of surface, it has very justly been observed that it is an epitome of all other countries and climates of the globe. High mountain ranges, isolated volcanic peaks, elevated ta ble-lands, deep valleys, broad and fertile plains, and ex tensive alluvions, are here found grouped together, relieved by large and beautiful lakes and majestic rivers ° the whole teeming with animal and vegetable life, and possessing every variety of climate, from torrid heats to the cool and bracing temperature of eternal sprin°\ The great chain of the Cordilleras here, as in South America, runs nearest to the Pacific coast, but in places it is interrupted, as I have already said, and assumes the form of detached ranges and isolated elevations, groups or knots of hills, between which the streams from the interior high valleys or elevated plains wind their way to the two oceans.

As a consequence, the principal alluvions border on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Here rains fall, in greater or less abundance, for the entire year ; vegetation is rank, and the climate is damp and proportionally insalubrious. The trade winds blow from the northeast; and the Chap. I.] geography and topography. 19 moisture with Avhich they are saturated, condensed on the elevated parts of the continent, flows down toward the Atlantic. The Pacific slope is therefore compara tively dry and healthful, as are also the elevated re gions of the interior. Topographically, Central America presents three marked centres of elevation, which have, to a certain de gree, fixed its political divisions. The first is the great plain, or broken table-land, in which is situated the city of Guatemala, and which is upward of four thousand feet above the sea.

Here the large rivers Usumasinta and Tabasco, flowing northward through Chiapa and Tabasco into the Gulf of Mexico, take their rise. Their sources interlock with those of the Motagua or Gualan, running eastward into the Gulf of Honduras, and with those of the small streams which send their waters west ward into the Pacific. A group of mountains occupies Honduras, present ing an almost mural front toward the Pacific, but shoot ing out numerous spurs or subordinate branches, like the fingers of an outspread hand, toward the north and east. Between these ranges, and in some cases almost encircled by hills, are several broad valleys or plains of different elevations, in which are gathered the wa ters of thousands of rivulets and small streams, forming numerous considerable rivers, which radiate north and east into the Caribbean Sea, and south and west into the Southern Ocean.

Among the most remarkable are the Chamelicon, the Ulua, Lean, Roman or Tinto, Patuca, Coco (Wanks or Segovia), upon the eastern slope ; the Choluteca, Nacaome, Goascoran, San Miguel, and Lempa, upon the western. Intervening between this and the third great centre of elevation in Costa Rica is the basin of the Nicara- CENTRAL AMERICA IN GENERAL. [CHAP. I. ■20 guan lakes, with its verdant slopes and gently undulating plains. The nucleus of the elevation in Costa Rica is the great volcano of Cartago, which towers in its midst. Here the Cordilleras assume their general char acter of a great, unbroken mountain barrier, but soon subside a^ain in low rids-es on the Isthmus of Panama. Besides the rivers of Central America, the largest of which I have enumerated, there are a number of large and beautiful lakes, viz. : Nicaragua and Man agua, in Nicaragua; Yojoa or Taulebe, in Honduras; Guija and Ilopango, in San Salvador; and Golfo Dulce, Peten or Itza, Atitlan, and Amatitlan, in Gua temala.

Of these, the Lakes of Nicaragua and Man agua are much the largest. I have said that the ports of Central America open to Europe and Africa on one hand, and to Polynesia, Asia, and Australia on the other. On the Atlantic, Guatemala has Belize, Izabal, and Santo Tomas (the last only of much value) ; Honduras has Omoa, Puer to Caballos, Puerto Sal, Triunfo de la Cruz, Truxillo, and others ; Nicaragua has Gracias a Dios, Bluefields, and San Juan. Costa Rica has no good port on the east, but has several on the west, of which Golfo Dulce, Punta Arenas, and Caldera are the principal. Nicaragua has, upon the Pacific, Culebra, Salinas, San Juan del Sur, and Realejo ; Honduras, a cluster in the Bay of Fonseca, viz. : Amapala (a free port), San Lorenzo, and La Paz ; San Salvador has La Union, also in the Bay of Fonseca, Jiquilisco or Espiritu Santo, Jaltepec or Concordia, La Libertad, and Aca jutla or Sonsonate.

The last two can hardly be called ports, being, in fact, only roadsteads. Guatemala has but one port or roadstead, Iztapa, lately named San Jose. The best of all these ports on the Atlantic are Chap. I.] 21 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. Santo Tomas, Omoa, Puerto Caballos, and San Juan del Norte; on the Pacific, Realejo, the 'free port of Amapala (Island of Tigre), and La Union. The area of Central America may be calculated, in round numbers, at lf>5,000 square miles — very nearly equal to that of the New England and the Middle States combined. The population may be estimated at not far from 2,000,000, of which Guatemala has 850,000 ; San Salvador, 433,000; Honduras, 350,000; Nicara gua, 300,000; and Costa Rica, 135,000. The geographical and topographical features of all countries have had, and always must have, an impor tant and often a controlling influence upon the charac ter and destiny of their populations.

The nature and extent of this influence receives a striking illustration both in the past and the present condition of Central America. At the period of the discovery, it was found in the occupation of two families of men, presenting in respect to each other the strongest points of contrast. Upon the high plateaus of the interior of the country, and upon the Pacific declivity of the continent, where the rains are comparatively light, the country open, and the climate relatively cool and salubrious, were found great and populous communities, far advanced in civil ization, and maintaining a systematized religious and civil organization. Upon the Atlantic declivity, on the other hand, among dense forests, nourished by constant rains into rank vigor, on low coasts, where marshes and lagoons, sweltering under a fierce sun, generated deadly miasmatic damps, were found savage tribes of men, without fixed abodes, living upon the natural fruits of the earth, and the precarious supplies of fish ing and the chase, without religion, and with scarcely a semblance of social or political establishments. [Chap. I. CENTRAL AMERICA IN GENERAL.

It is impossible to resist the conviction that the con trasting conditions of these two great families were principally due to the equally contrasting physical con ditions of their respective countries. With the prim itive dwellers on the Atlantic declivity of Central America, no considerable advance, beyond the rudest habits of life, was possible. He was powerless against the exuberant vitality of savage nature, which even the civilized man, with all the appliances that intelli gence has gradually called to his aid, is unable to sub due, and which still retains its ancient dominion over the broad alluvions, both of Central and South Amer ica. His means of sustenance were too few and too precarious to admit of his making permanent establish ments, which, in turn, would involve an adjustment of the relations of men and the organization of society.

He was therefore a hunter from necessity, nomadic in his habits, and obliged to dispute his life with men who, like himself, were scarcely less savage than the beasts of the forests. Civilization could never have been developed under such adverse conditions. It can only originate where favorable physical circumstances afford to man some relief from the pressure of immediate and ever-recurrino wants — where a genial climate, and an easily-cultivated soil, bountiful in indigenous fruits, enables him not only to make his permanent abode, but to devote a portion of his time to the improvement of his superior nature. Such were the circumstances which surrounded the dweller on the high plains of Honduras and Guate mala. There, wide and fertile savannas invited to agriculture, and yielded to the rudest implements of cultivation an ample harvest.

The maize, that great Chap. I.] physical influences on population. 23 support of aboriginal civilization in America, was prob ably indigenous there, and was thence carried northward over Mexico and the Floridas by the various families who established themselves in those regions, and whose languages and traditions point to the plateaus of Guatemala as their original seat. The natural conditions which favored the develop ment of mankind in one portion of Central America. and rigidly suppressed it in another, are still active and potential. The Spaniards stopped not to maintain an unequal struggle against savage nature on the Atlan tic slope of the continent, but established themselves upon the dryer, more salubrious, and more genial Pa cific declivity. The Mosquito Shore still remains the haunt of savages, whom three hundred years of contact with civilization have failed to improve ; while the State of San Salvador sustains a population twice as great in proportion to its area as any other equal ex tent of Spanish America, and relatively as great as that of New England itself.

These natural conditions will continue to foster settlement and population on the one hand, and discour age and oppose it on the other ; and not until those portions of Central and South America which are most favored in respect of position and climate are filled to overflowing, and the progress of discovery, both in science and in art, has endowed men with increased abil ity to combat successfully the diseases and physical difficulties which exist in the valleys of the Amazon and Orinoco, and on the Mosquito Shore, will those regions be subjected to the influences of civilization, or become the seats of any considerable populations. The natural relations of Central America, as indi cated by the physical facts already pointed out, are CENTRAL AMERICA IN GENERAL. [CHAP. I. 24 clearly with the Pacific and the states which now ex ist or may spring into existence upon that coast.

To California and the greater part of Mexico, as also to some of the states of South America, it must come, sooner or later, to sustain a position corresponding with that which the West Indies have held toward the United States and Europe, with the important addi tion of being an established route of travel, and per haps ultimately of commerce, between the eastern and western hemispheres. Its destiny is plainly written in the outlines of its coast, and is printed on its surface, not less than demonstrated by its geographical position. Chap. II. ] 25 OBSERVATIONS ON CLIMATE.

Chapter II. Observations On The Climate Of Central America In General

T^HE peculiarities of Central America, in respect of configuration of surface, will explain the almost endless variety of climate to which I have alluded, and which is nowhere more remarkable than in that coun try. Situated between 8° and 17° north latitude, were it not for these features, the general temperature would be somewhat higher than that of the West Indies. As it is, the climate of the coast is nearly the same with that of the islands alluded to, and exceedingly uniform. It is modified somewhat by the shape and position of the shore, and by the proximity of the mountains, as well as by the prevailing winds. The heat on the Pa cific coast is not, however, so oppressive as on the At lantic; less, perhaps, because of any considerable difference of temperature than on account of the greater dryness and purity of the atmosphere.

In the northern part of the State of Guatemala, in what is called "Los Altos," the Highlands, the average temperature is lower than in any other part of the country. Snow sometimes falls in the vicinity of Que zaltenango, the capital of this department, as well as on the high plains of Intibucat in Honduras, but soon disappears, as the thermometer seldom remains at the freezing point for any considerable length of time. In the vicinity of the city of Guatemala, the range of the thermometer is from 55° to 80°, averaging about 72° of Fahrenheit. Vera Paz, the northeastern department of Guatemala, and embracing the coast below Yucatan to the Gulf of Dulce, is nearly ten degrees warmer. This coast, from Belize downward to Izabal and Santo Tomas, is hot and unhealthy. The same remark applies, in a less degree, to the northern and eastern coast of Honduras, from Omoa to Cape Gracias a Dios.

A favorable circumstance here is the close approach of the mountains to the shore, and the prevalence, for a considerable portion of the year, of cool and bracing winds from the north. The State of San Salvador lies wholly on the Pacific. It is smaller than any of the others, but proportionally better populated. It is less elevated than either Guatemala or Honduras, and its general temperature is probably higher. The heat, however, is never oppressive, except at a few points near the coast, as for instance Sonsonate, San Miguel and La Union, all of which owe their excessively high temperature to local circumstances. Honduras, as its name implies (being the plural of "hondura," depth), has a very diversified surface, and a consequent diversity of temperature. The climate is generally delightful, the average temperature at Tegucigalpa, Comayagua, Juticalpa, and Gracias, the principal towns, being about 74°.

The Department of Segovia, in Nicaragua, bordering on Honduras, has a like surface and tempera ture. The principal part of Nicaragua, however, is widely different in all respects, and has a topography and climate peculiarly its own. The average tempera ture of the great basin of the lakes is about 79° or 80° : a result due not to its elevation, but to other favorable and modifying causes, which I have fully pointed out in my work on that country. The population of Costa Rica is concentrated on the western or Pacific slope of the volcano of Cartago, and, as a consequence, almost > Chap. II.] 27 OBSERVATIONS ON CLIMATE. any degree of temperature may be obtained, according to the elevation, from the intense heat of the port of Punta Arenas to the constant spring of San Jose, or to the autumnal temperature of the belt around the an cient capital of Cartago.

The eastern slopes of Costa Rica may be said to be uninhabited, and the coast from Chiriqui Lagoon northward is Ioav and unhealthy. Indeed, the entire Atlantic coast of Central America, from Truxillo southward, embracing the whole of what is called the Mosquito shore, is subject to the same re mark. Hence this coast has scarcely any inhabitants, except a few squalid Indians, wfiile the coast of the Pacific is lined with towns, and occupied by a very con siderable population. What are called the "seasonfe" under the tropics, namely, the wet and dry, are mu^h influenced in their commencement and duration by (local causes, so that what is literally true of one place can only be partially so of another. The widest differences are, of course, between the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of the conti nent.

The whole of Central America comes within the zone of the northeast trade winds?, which, sweeping across the Atlantic, reach the continent almost saturated with vapor. The portion of moisture of which they are deprived by the Caribbean Islands is proba bly again nearly, if not quite, made up hi their passage over the sea of the same name. These winds are inter cepted by the high mountain centres of Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica, and the vapor precipitated from them flows down to the Atlantic, through a multitude of streams and rivers. But the mountains of Central America are not all high enough to entirely intercept the trade winds. They are, moreover, brok en through by transverse valleys, like that of the Nicaraguan Lakes, and that of Comayagua in Honduras. As a consequence, the trades, for a greater part of the year, blow entirely across the continent, reaching the Pacific slope deprived of their moisture, and cooled by a passage over the elevated region of the interior.

Hence result the greater salubrity of that declivity, the comparative coolness and dryness of its climate, and its consequent greater population. For about four months of the year, from May to October, the trades being intermittent, the Pacific declivity is subject to winds from the west and southwest, which precipitate their waters against the western slopes of the mountains, and constitute the rainy season. As these Pacific winds are seldom more than exaggerated sea-breezes, and are rarely of more than a few hours' continuance, the rains which follow from them are brief, occurring generally in the afternoon and night. It is rare to witness an entire day of rain, although there are occasionally me teoric combinations which produce what the Spaniards call Temporales, or rains of several days1 continuance.

During a residence of three rainy seasons in Central America, I witnessed but one Temporal. Speaking generally, the dry season, or summer, may be said to commence, on the coasts, in December, and terminate in June; the remaining months constituting the rainy season, or winter. But the dry season has really a duration of but about three months — Febru ary, March, and April; the rainy season an equal num ber — July, August, and September. Between these periods the rains are intermittent, alternating with days and sometimes weeks of dry weather. On both coasts heavy dews fall during the night, so that vegetation is always profuse and beautiful. But on the more elevated central plateaus, where the alti- Chap. II.] 29 OBSERVATIONS ON CLIMATE. tude exceeds 3000 feet, the dews are slight, and the nights are as dry as the days.

As a consequence, some of these districts at certain periods seem arid and burned, and never enjoy that luxuriance of vegetation which con stitutes equally the beauty and danger of the seaboards. Although the rains, especially those which, at the epochs of change in the seasons, fall in showers, are much heavier than those which prevail in the United States and in Europe, so that in a few minutes the earth is covered with water, yet they do not generally last more than half an hour. They cease as suddenly as they begin ; the sky as suddenly recovers its seren ity, the sun comes out unclouded, dispersing the hu midity, and in a brief space the earth becomes, to all appearance, as dry as if no rain had fallen. What I have said applies strictly to the respective Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The central plateaus, or high table-lands of the interior, have a climate of their own, subject neither to heavy rains nor excessive droughts.

The winds which reach them, as well from the west as the east, are first deprived of the greater part of their moisture, but both bring with them more or less rain. From the circumstance that they lie nearest the Pacific, these plateaus partake most of the climate of that coast, with which their seasons also measurably coincide. The plain of Comayagua, situated in the very centre of Honduras, and equidistant from the two great seas, may be taken as an illustra tion. More or less rain falls there during every month in the year ; but, during the prevalence of the dry sea son on the Pacific, it is only in the form of showers of brief duration, while during the wet season the rains are comparatively long and heavy. Continuous rains, or Temporales, are unknown. There is another circumstance, not often considered, which contributes to make the heat of the day in this intertropical region more endurable than that of certain periods of the year in more elevated latitudes, and that circumstance is the difference in the length of the days.

In the latitude of New York, the longest days of the year are 15 hours 16 min. ; the shortest nights are 8 hours 44 min. In the latitude of Hon duras, the longest days of the year are 12 hours 40 min.; the shortest nights 11 hours 20 min. The sun, then, during the solstice of summer, is above the horizon of New York 2 hours 36 minutes longer than in Hondu ras ; and it is precisely during this period that the sun is nearest our zenith, while in Honduras, during the longest days, the sun is past the zenith. It is clear that this additional exposure to the rays of the sun during its period of greatest force must have a very sensible effect on the temperature, and render the heat greater and less supportable than it would be were its action limited to a fewer number of hours. These general remarks will be found supported by the following data, which comprise about all the in formation that I have been able to collect on this subject from personal observations or from authentic sources : Costa Rica. — "The climate of Costa Rica is • very humid, the rain falling for six months of the year.

It is cool and healthy on the Pacific declivity, excepting the immediate coast ; hot, wet, and unhealthy on the Atlantic ; cold and salubrious on the table-lands of the interior, where the thermometer ranges from 65° to 75° of Fahr. in the course of the year. It must be observed that the rainy season on the Pacific and in the interior is from April to November; but upon the Atlantic Chap. II.] observations on climate. 31 coast this order of things is reversed, and the rainy season is from November to February."* Nicaragua. — Observations were made, during the progress of the survey for a ship-canal in Nicaragua, in 1850-51, by the gentlemen connected with that en terprise. These observations were confined to the isth mus which lies between Lake Nicaragua and the Pa cific, at a point where the trade winds, sweeping through the valley of the San Juan River, and over Lake Nic aragua, find no high mountains to precipitate their moisture until they reach the volcanic peaks of Ometepee and Madeira.

Hence it happens that this Isthmus of Rivas receives a greater amount of rain annually than any other portion of the Pacific coast of Central America. OBSERVATIONS AT RIVAS, NICARAGUA— 1850-51. _ Average. Highest Lowest. Date- Thermom. Thermom. Thermom. Range. September, 1850 78 12 88 71 17 October, do. 77 0 86 70 16 November, do. 78 42 86 74 12 December, do. 77 11 84 72 12 January, 1851 76 40 87 69 18 February, do. 76 0 84 70 14 March, do. 77 0 84 72 12 April, do. 78 83 88 72 16 May, do. 78 29 91 68 23 June, do. 77 12 88 71 17 July, do. 76 98 86 71 15 August, do. 76 20 86 71 15 Sept. 12th, do. 79 10 86 74 12 Total mean . . 77 42 86 45 71 15 15 30 Here it will be observed that the maximum range * Bosquejo de la Republica de Costa Rica, etc., por Felipe Molina, p. 28. Galindo {Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. vi., p. 131) observes that the climate of Costa Rica is exceedingly varied, ranging from 50° to 60° of Fahr., according to the elevation. was in the month of May, and was 23°.

The mean range for the year, however, was only 15°. The heat at no time of the year is as great as it is during the summer months in New York. For June, July, and August of 1850, the mean average range of the thermometer at the town of Lansingburg, New York, was 71° 5', the mean highest 93° 66', the mean lowest 47° 33', and the mean range 46° 33'. At Jamaica, Long Island, for July and August of the same year, the mean average was 75° 15', the mean highest 95° 50', the mean lowest 61° 50', and the mean range 43° 27'. In respect of rain, the principal surveyor has given us the result of careful admeasurements made at Rivas for one year, from September 9th, 1850, to September 25th, 1851. The amount was taken in inches and decimals, and is as follows : Inches. Inches. April, 1851 . . 0.430 May, do. . . 9.145 June, do. . . 14.210 July, do. . . 22.640 August, do. .. 11.810 September, do. . . 13.240 September, 1850 . . 7.005 October, do. . . 17.860 November, do. . . 1.395 December, do. . . 3.210 January, 1851 . . 0.380 February, do. . . 0.000 March, do. . . 1.410 Total inches 102.735 For the exact year, from September 9th, 1850, to September 9th, 1851, the amount of rain was 97.71 inches.

The whole number of days during which rain fell was 139, and the whole number of dry days was 226. During the six months, from May to October inclusive, distinguished as the wet season, the whole fall was 90. 89 inches, and during the remaining six months, distinguished as the dry season, only 6.82 inches. But these observations, as I have said, were made Chap. II.] 33 OBSERVATIONS ON CLIMATE. at Rivas, under the lee of the volcano of Ometepec, where more rain falls than at Granada or Leon, in the northern portion of the state. At Rivas there was but one month, February, in which no rain fell. In 1850, in Leon, no rain fell for three months, from the first of January to the first of April. The average annual fall of rain and snow in the State of New York, during the ten years preceding 1846, according to the report of the Regents of the University, is 34. 14 inches.

The greatest fall in any one year during that period was 37.04 inches, and the least 32.10 inches. Honduras. — The northern and eastern coast of Hon duras has unquestionably a higher temperature than any other portion of the state ; it however diminishes rapidly as we penetrate inland. The modifying influ ence of the neighboring mountains is felt even before the increase in altitude becomes perceptible. Her table-lands have, of course, a climate varying with their height above the sea, and their exposure to the prevail ing winds. Consequently, there can be no generaliza tion on the subject of the climate of Honduras, except so far as to say that it has a variety adapted to every caprice, and a temperature suitable for the cultivation of the products of every zone. Among the data on this subject are the observations made by Mr. Thomas Young, at the mouth of Black River, on the Bay of Honduras, lat. 16° N, long. 85° W., for one year (1840-41 ?).