Our selections are taken from his _Geografía de Mexico_. A school text-book of geography is hardly a promising place in which to seek examples of literary value, but in his descriptions Noriega often shows facility in expression and felicity in statement. CLIMATIC ZONES OF MEXICO. The climatic contrasts occasioned by the mountainous relief, are sharply produced only in the middle portion of the Republic, that is to say, in the central _mesa_ and upon the slopes of the _cordillera_. The section from one coast to the other, from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, for example, is the line best situated for observing well-marked climatic changes. The low zone of the seaboard contains, at once, the marshes and the barren sands of the coast, the well-watered open plains, and the lower slopes, where the luxuriant branchings of a thousand differing trees mingle and crowd, closely bound together by festoons of trailing and pendent vines, forming lovely masses of verdure, sprinkled through with fruits of many and brilliant colors, which stand out conspicuously from the magnificent, chlorophyll-laden foliage, and above all of which tower the graceful forms of palm trees. To such a charming tropical combination is given the name--_tierra caliente_ (hot land). Within this range, where the temperature passes 23° C., there are places which must be included among the hottest on the globe; such, for example, is the port of La Paz, in Lower California. The high temperature of this region, gave to it the name, derived from the words _calida fornax_, which signify _hot oven_. Above the two seaboard zones, one sloping toward the Gulf, the other toward the Pacific, rises the _tierra templada_ (temperate land), at an altitude of from 1000 m. to 2000 m., but higher in the south than in the north. This region corresponds to the southwest of Europe, not so much in climate--for it has no winter--as in mean temperature, productivity and salubrity. Lastly, the central tableland, the part of the territory where the maguey is cultivated with notable profit and every class of cereals is produced, constitutes the _tierra fria_ (cold land). It is the most populous part of the Republic. In the high valleys, as those of Toluca and Mexico, the descent of the mercurial column often shows considerable falls of temperature; in winter the column reaches 8° or 10° below 0 C. and frosts are frequent. In general, however, the winters are mild. The mean temperature is from 13° to 14° C. In many places exceptional conditions have brought the vegetable areas into abrupt juxtaposition; thus, while upon the summit of some ridge, only plants of European character may live and flourish, in the plains surrounding it are seen palms and bananas. From the summit of the great volcanoes, the three superposed zones may be clearly seen, at once.