Puebla is one of the most important of the Mexican states--both in natural resources and in its general flourishing condition. It occupies the region south of the great tableland, extending beyond this, however, both to the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds, its central part forming the _divortia aquarum_ of the continent in this portion, its rivers on the west running to the Pacific Ocean and those on the east to the Gulf of Mexico through the State of Vera Cruz. In the northern part of this region the mountains form a scattered group, unlike the Cordilleras of the Sierra Madre of other parts of Mexico. The topography and scenery are rugged and picturesque. The northern mountains include the Sierra Nevada, which form the boundary of the valley of Mexico and the great plateau. Here rise the beautiful snow-capped peaks which are so prominent a feature of this part of Mexico--Popocatepetl (17,300 feet), Ixtaccihuatl (15,700 feet), Malintzin (13,462 feet), and others, on the boundary with the States of Puebla and Mexico. Orizaba (18,250 feet) and the Cofre de Perote (13,400 feet), on the border of the State of Vera Cruz, descend to high-spreading tablelands, watered only by the snows of these mountains, as they are riverless. The beautiful valley wherein the capital city of Puebla is situated, some short distance to the east of Popocatepetl and its sister peak, is, however, traversed by the remarkable river Atoyac which, rising beyond the borders of the state, forms the headwaters of the great Balsas river, debouching, after a trajectory of more than four hundred miles, into the Pacific. [Illustration: TYPICAL SIDE STREET IN MEXICAN VILLAGE: THE TOWN OF AMECA AND CLOUD-EFFECT ON POPOCATEPETL.] The area of this state is 12,200 square miles, sustaining more than a million inhabitants. Agriculture, and industries and manufacture depending thereon are the source of wealth and property; mining occupies a relatively small place, although minerals abound, and onyx and coal are famous among them. The valley of Puebla draws its varied sources of life largely from the Atoyac river, whose hydrographic basin forms a fertile region probably superior to any in the Republic. Level tracts of land and undulating valleys are irrigated freely from this river, giving huge crops of cereals, and numerous mills producing textile fabrics are actuated by the water-power it affords. The slopes of the mountains to the north are covered with forests whose stores of timber are a little-exploited source of wealth at present. The southerly region forms a tropical zone where the products corresponding to its climate abound--as cotton, coffee, sugar-cane, and others. Here the state extends to the borders of Guerrero and Oaxaca.