More than Friends — More Than Neighbors

Como Mexico No Hay Dos

OMO México No Hay Dos! A charming truth charmingly put! Like México there are not two. Not so charming as in Spanish, but still a truth. There is only one México. México is unique. There is no other nation or country on earth like our good neighbor to the south. Look at a map. Where Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California stop, México begins. La Republica Mexicana swings gracefully down toward the equator, wide at the top and narrowing down gently and gracefully, except where Yucatan bulges out like a sore heel. On the map it looks something like a spinning top, if you held your hand over that part labeled Baja (Ba-hah), California.

By the yardstick, La Republica is 763,944 square miles in area, and over those miles are scattered (by the count of 1939) 19,478,791 people, the majority Indians. The northern boundary of the country is 1,600 miles long, the west boundary is a coast line 4,574 miles long; while the eastern coast line is 1,727 miles in length. The Golfo de California, bounded by Baja (Lower) California and the mainland of México is no small puddle itself, measuring 739 miles in length with a maximum width of 190 miles. Baja California, like an odd-shaped finger, is a narrow strip of land some 760 miles long.

But México is more than statistics. México is mountains, and deserts, valleys and plateaus, volcanoes and silent miles of lonely beaches. The wild, rugged Sierra Madres shoulder their brusque way north-south down the eastern and western sides, giving the country two big back-bones, between which are smaller and less severe mountain ranges and plateauland. The highest point in México is the Pico (Peako) de Orizaba (Oh-ree-zah-vah), the second highest mountain on the North American continent, being surpassed only by Mt. McKinley. Orizaba looks down on the country from an elevation of 18,225 feet. Not so high as Orizaba but picture book peaks are Popocatépetl (Po-po-kah-téh-petl) 17,794 feet high and Ixtaccihualta (Eeks-tócksee-wattle) 16,200 feet, two photogenic landmarks addressed by Mexicans as members of the family.

México is a land of mountains, some leveled off by erosion, some gentled by time, some chopped off by volcanic action.

México stands for mineral wealth, the nation producing 40 percent of the world's silver, and large quantities of copper, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, and other precious metals. There are oceans of petroleum within the boundaries of the country, and México's productive soil has hardly been touched as yet.

Agriculture and stock-raising are the principal industries of La Republica Mexicana. Important products are corn, rice, sugar, wheat, coffee bean, tomatoes, tobacco, cotton, carbanzos, cocoa, sisal and bananas. Fifty percent of the world's supply of sisal comes from Yucatan alone. But again the country hasn't been touched. Marvellously rich, it is estimated that there are cultivable lands to the extent of 120,417,760 acres in México, of which about 30,000,00 are now in cultivation. Grazing lands are estimated to be 120,500,000 acres and forested lands measure 44,000,000 acres of which 25,000,00 acres are rich in pine, spruce, cedar, mahogany, rosewood and logwood. It's a rich country, isn't it?