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 parts of this division are many fissures 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.

The delta-shaped area of all the east-flowing rivers forms the third division. It comprises about 15,000 square miles, or 75 miles from east to west and about 200 miles from north to south on the seacoast. This part of the coast has subsided until within the past few years, and the ancient coast line was formerly far to the eastward of its present position. Recently, its elevation appears to have recommenced. Formerly, corals grew nearly into the mouths of the rivers Matagalpa, Escondido, and others. Now, the tops of their branches are dead, and the muddy river waters that killed them are distinguishable several miles seaward.

The fourth division lies on the western side of the first. It has for its western limit the foot of the mountain ridges which extend to near the margin of lakes Nicaragua and Managua, and extends from the lakes northwestward to about latitude 13° 15' north. Formations of the following ages occur in this as well as in the second division:

Recent. Submerged forests, clay, peat, marl, volcanic tufas, stratified sand and ashes, and uncompacted volcanic ashes.

Pleistocene. Terrace beaches and deposits, metamorphosed rock-walled gulches, erratic bowlders, striated rocks, moraines, volcanic tufas and agglomerates, and alluvial conglomerates.

Pliocene.-Lignites, loams, and flinty shingle.

Miocene. Greenish marly limestones, clay, fresh-water marly limestone, and sandstones.

Eocene.-Limestones, clay, fresh-water marly limestones, and sandstones. Mesozoic.-Oölitic flinty limestones, conglomerates and slates, bluish marly clays, greenish sandstones, pebbly sandstones, gypsum, salt beds, bituminous earths, and marls.

Fermian.-Magnesian limestones, variegated shales, red sandstones, and

lignite.

Carboniferous.-Coal, mostly anthracite in character, sandstone, and lime

stone.

There are ancient volcanic fissures in this division, but the rocks filling them are rapidly disintegrating. They are not distinctly outlined in many places, but are partly covered by eruptions from

more recent volcanoes.

Several large springs, having a temperature of 158° to 212° F., flow from the foot of the mountains in the northwestern part of this division. They usually contain large percentages of alkalis. This division is very interesting, and wonderfully varied in its stratification, lithology, mineralogy, and mineral springs.

The fifth division embraces the northwestern and southwestern parts of Nicaragua, including lakes Nicaragua and Managua, which were once part of the Cenozoic ocean; also several small · lakes in the craters of extinct volcanoes. Some of these contain pure or slightly alkaline water, as Masaya, Apoyo, Tiscapa, etc. Others contain large amounts of sulphur and alkalis, as Nejapa (which gives iodine reactions and possesses in a remarkable degree the property of preserving and strengthening animal membrane, tissues, etc.), Asososca, and others. The northwestern part of this division extends to near the Gulf of Fonseca. Its rocks are paleozoic. It is intersected by many lodes, generally running from northeast to southwest, which contain gold as the principal metal, but those passing into granite rocks, or between granite and gneiss and shales, have as their principal metal silver, tin, or manganese. The gangue of all these veins is quartz and magnesian slates, and their walls are granite or gneiss, or one of these on one side and shales on the other, excepting a few of the goldbearing veins, which have walls of diabase or diorite. Some of the most valuable mineral veins in the southern part of this division have been largely faulted and disturbed.

The western and southwestern parts of this division, with the exception of a few low hills, are composed to great depths of matter ejected from the line of volcanic fissures and cones which pass through or appear above it. On this erupted mass, are situated all the large towns and cities in Nicaragua excepting Matagalpa and Jinotega; and more than seven-tenths of the population of the country reside in the towns, fertile valleys, and mountain slopes of