Up in the Sierra Madre Mountains, in a bowl-shaped valley, is the capital of Mexico. It is called Mexico City, so you don’t have to learn a new name. The farther north you go the colder it gets, but not always. The farther south you go the warmer it gets, but not always. But the higher up you go in the mountains the colder it gets—always. Mexico City is so far south you would think it would be very hot, but it is not, because it is so high up in the mountains. They have mild weather in Mexico City all the year round.

Near Mexico City is an old volcano with the peculiar name: Po-poca- tepetl. It sounds something like Po-poca-teakettle. Why didn’t they give it an easy name, you may wonder. They did, for in the language of the Indians who named it, Popocatepetl means “smoking mountain.” Popocatepetl is so far south we should expect it to be warm, but it is so high that its top is cold and is covered with snow all the year round. Popocatepetl is no longer firing up, but clouds of sulphur smoke pour out of it all the time and sulphur collects in its mouth. Indian workmen climb up the sides of Popocatepetl and climb down inside to get the sulphur, which is used in making matches and medicine and other things.

On the Gulf side of Mexico, along the shore, it is very warm indeed, very damp and unhealthful, so no one would live there if he didn’t have to; but great lakes of oil were found down under the ground, along the shore near a city called Tampico, and men have dug wells through the ground to get the oil. It is so close to the sea that tank ships can fill up with the oil and carry it to the United States and other places in the World. It is much cheaper to send oil by ship than by train, for one tank ship will carry as much as a thousand tank cars.

The thumb-like piece of Mexico is called Yucatan. In Yucatan grows a plant with tall swords-haped leaves. From these leaves a fiber that looks like long gray hair, called sisal, is obtained. It is used to make rope and twine. From the juice of another plant that grows in Yucatan, chewing-gum is made.