the year 1910 exceeded four million barrels. Several of the railways have already adopted this fuel. Wonderful progress is being made in developing the mineral resources of this country, and it is possible that greater discoveries will yet be made. The wealth of Mexico to-day is not being squandered after the manner of many of the bonanza kings; but it is being spent along legitimate lines, and is one of the greatest aids in building up a strong republic and developing a nation of intelligent and liberty-loving citizens. CHAPTER XVI RAILWAYS AND THEIR INFLUENCE A work upon Mexico would be incomplete without a description of the railways and the present progressive railway movement. Nothing has contributed in such a degree to the great progress that has been made in the last quarter of a century in Mexico, as the rapidly increasing railway lines. This is true not only of the influence these advance agents of progressiveness have had upon commerce, but they have enlarged the intercourse with other nations, especially with the United States. Through this means the dormant energies and ambitions of the Mexican people have been awakened, and a new era has dawned in our Latin neighbour. The centres of population in Mexico have always been situated in the great central plateaus in the interior. Only a very small proportion of the population live on, or near the coast. Communication with the ports was over long, narrow and rough trails. The transportation of commerce was slow and expensive, and required great droves of slow-moving pack mules and patient burros, and whole armies of cargadors. Furthermore, the very isolation of the people and difficulty of communication kept them aloof from modern progress, and left them content with things as they were, with no ambition for anything more advanced or better than had been enjoyed by their forefathers. It also prevented the development of a real, national spirit, because one community was, in a true sense, not familiar with the neighbouring cities, and took a special pride in its local interests rather than in the idea of a homogeneous, strongly-centred whole. So jealous were those employed in the business of transportation in the old crude way, that, in order to placate them, some of the earlier roads were obliged to commence construction at the point furthermost from the port, in order to give employment to these people in transporting the material from the port to the place of beginning. Those who are familiar with the great development of the west, since the construction of our own trans-continental lines, will better appreciate the change that railroad construction has wrought in Mexico. There is this difference, however, that the people were in Mexico before the railroads were built, and, instead of a newly-developed country it is a rejuvenated old country.