The name of New Spain was at first given only to Yucatan by Grijalva and his followers; but Cortez extended it to the whole empire of Montezuma, which is described by the earliest writers to have reached from Panama to New California. This, however, appears, from more recent researches, on the accuracy of which Humboldt relies with reason, to have been larger than the reality justified; and the whole of Tenochtitlan may be said to have been contained in the present states of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico, and Valadolid. In addition to the name given by Cortez, that of the capital was extended to the whole kingdom of New Spain; and since the revolution and the establishment of independence, the several provinces form separate and independent states, confederating together and constituting the nineteen United States of Mexico; viz. Chiapa, Chihuahua, Cohahuila and Texas, Durango, Guanaxuato, Mexico, Michoachan, New Leon, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Cinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Vera Cruz, Xalisco, Yucatan and Zacatecas. Old and New California, Colima, New Mexico, and Tlascala, though forming members of the federation, declined having state governments, on account of the expense, and are designated territories. The whole republic, according to Humboldt, occupies a space of 75,830 square leagues, of twenty to an equinoxial degree; on which there are to be found every inequality of surface, and every variety of soil and climate, the two last of which are dependent in most cases on the former. The republic of Mexico, taken on the grand scale, may be considered as a succession of small mountain-plains at different heights, separated by mountains, and increasing in magnitude as the coast recedes on both the eastern and western sides, until the great centre plain be reached, which, though much broken by mountain ridges, tends to the north, maintaining nearly an equal elevation. The snow-capped mountains of Orizava, and the volcanos of Puebla and Toluca, are among the most splendid objects in the world. The Mexicans divide the regions of their country into _Tierras calientes, Tierras templadas_, and _Tierras frias_, according to the climate. Throughout the whole country there is a lamentable want of water, and of navigable rivers. The lakes, too, appear to be yearly decreasing in extent, the immediate consequence of which is, that the elevated portions of the interior are nearly stripped of vegetation, and the soil covered with an efflorescence of carbonate of soda, there called _Tequisquita_, resembling very closely the plains of the two Castiles, and recalling to the Eastern traveller the desolate wastes of some parts of Persia.