supply a water which justly ranks among the most valuable medicinal waters of the world, and which now effects every year many remarkable cures among the comparatively few persons who visit the springs. The water now sent to market comes from the well-known springs in Coyote Cañon, and is considered equal in every respect to the well-known Manitou water of Colorado. It is now regularly used in many families and all of the saloons in Albuquerque, and thousands of gallons of it are shipped to distant parts of the country. It is a business in which the raw material costs nothing, and the supply is inexhaustible. Waters of several different characters are obtained from the springs in the Coyote district and have been found to be highly valuable for their curative properties in many kinds of diseases. The water at the "Old Coyote Spring" has been used with great success by the natives of the country for many years in the cure of rheumatism, and the "iron water" obtained from Harsch's mineral springs has been found to be of great value in nerve and stomach troubles and all of the various ailments that come from overwork and a general "run-down" condition of the system. For the nerves, the stomach, the kidneys, or the liver the waters are valuable, and anyone afflicted with any of the disorders named will not fail to experience relief through a sojourn at these springs.

EDUCATION.

There is nothing that marks the progress of this county in a more striking manner than the growth and development of its educational facilities. Only a comparatively few years ago the American public school was here an unknown institution, while now the common schools of the county are as well organized and as well attended as those in any portion of the United States, and the masses of the children now growing up are receiving a good common-school education. The entire county is organized into school districts of convenient size, and the children in the country are all able to attend school without walking more than a convenient distance; and since experience has thoroughly taught the older people the value of education they are especially anxious that their children should utilize the advantages now within their reach. For this reason the percentage of attendance is unusually large during the winter months; but, many of the families being poor, the most of the larger children in the country districts have to be kept at home to work during that portion of the year when the crops have to be attended to. This reduces the general average, and in many districts causes a shortening of the school year.

The best teachers obtainable are employed in all of the schools, but the fact that in the country districts the children, as a rule, speak only the Spanish language and are to be taught English makes it necessary for the teachers in such districts to speak and understand both languages, and this of course makes it peculiarly difficult to secure competent teachers for such districts. The county superintendent has hundreds of applications from normal graduates in the East who desire to come to New Mexico, and who would doubtless all be good teachers in the States. Numbers of them understand French and Latin and some of them German and Greek, while Spanish is an unknown tongue to more than 99 per cent of them, though Spanish is the language of all the American countries south of the United States as well as millions of our own citizens, including three-fourths of those in New Mexico and practically all of those of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, and also our semi-citizens in Cuba.

Albuquerque, the county seat, is the only incorporated city in the county, and constitutes independent school district; but this is fully considered in that portion of this report devoted to Albuquerque.

CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE.

Alburquerque, the county seat of Bernalillo County, was founded by the New Mexico Town Company in the spring of 1880, on the coming of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway from the east, and at once assumed a size and importance which caused the removal of the county seat from the town of Bernalillo to this point in the following year.

The place consists, in reality, of two towns, originally a mile and a half apart, but now grown together. The new town, which is a thoroughly modern product, has just passed its twenty-first anniversary, while the history of the old town reaches back so far into the past that the date of its birth, like that of many of the oldest inhabitants, is shrouded in mystery. The records of the Jesuit Mission at this point go back to 1680, just two hundred years before the founding of the new town, while tradition stretches back to a much earlier date. But the town, like the Territory in general, "turned over a new leaf” on the coming of the railroad, and entered upon a new era. The legis lature, which met in the latter part of December, 1884, passed a general incorporation act, the first the Territory had ever had, and under this act the new portion of Albuquerque was at once incorporated as a town, with a mayor and board of trustees, and a population of a little over 2,000. By reason of its continued growth it was enabled to incorporate as a city in 1891, and is now the largest and most important place in the Territory, having a trade area directly tributary to it, which includes a radius of about 150 miles, a little less on the east, and a good deal more on the west and south, giving the merchants of the place undisputed possession of a field larger than the whole of the six New England States.

Albuquerque has enjoyed its share of the general prosperity that has prevailed throughout the country under the present National Administration, and the largest part of the growth of the county during the last year, in wealth and population, has been in the city and its suburbs. A large number of very substantial improvements have been brought to completion, and many others are still on the way. The large number of commodious and costly residences put up by the citizens of the town furnish the best of evidence that could be given of the general prosperity of the people. A recent report to the city council by the street commissioner shows that the place now has 5 miles of cement, on artificial stone, sidewalks, a large part of the work having been done during the past twelve months, taking the place of the original plank walks. A great deal of work has also been done on the streets during the same time, and it is now generally conceded that Albuquerque has as fine streets and walks as any city of its size in any part of the United States, and particular attention is given by the city government to keeping them in first-class condition.

The large number of shade trees also constitute a notable feature of the place. The town site was originally a sandy plain without a tree or a bush, but the city now has many miles of as beautifully shaded thoroughfares as are to be found anywhere. The growth of so many trees, together with the great amount of work that has been done in grading and paving the streets, has added greatly to the comfort of

the people, and has completely banished the "sand storms," which in former years constituted the most disagreeable feature of life in Albuquerque.

But the attention of the people has not been confined by any means to the physical side of life. One of their first acts after incorporation was to institute a modern system of public schools, and this has been from the beginning the pride of the town. The city forms an independent school district under the general control of a board of education, composed of two members from each of the four wards, while a city superintendent has immediate charge of all the schools and their work, and none but first-class teachers are employed in any of the grades. A large and commodious modern school building has been erected in each ward at a cost of $60,000, while there is in addition a large central or high school building, receiving the higher grades from all the wards, and in which pupils are fitted for the preparatory class of the University of New Mexico, which is also at this point.

The public schools of Albuquerque are conducted upon the most approved modern lines and will suffer nothing by comparison with those of the most progressive towns of the Eastern States. Including the university, the public-school system is as nearly perfect as it is practicable for the best educators to make it, in the light of the present day, and many children from neighboring towns and from distant parts of the Territory are regularly sent here to profit by its advantages. In addition to the public schools, the Catholics, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Congregationalists all maintain good denominational schools, and hence those who desire to have the education of their children carried forward upon religious lines can also be accommodated.

In additional to these public and denominational institutions, there are probably a dozen private schools and kindergartens of different sorts; and the United States Government maintains at this point one of the largest of its several institutions for educating Indian children and training them in the ways of civilization. This has a present enrollment of 400 pupils, chiefly Navaho and Pueblo, and could have twice as many if it had room to accommodate them. These various advantages in the line of schools of different sorts serve to make Albuquerque the educational as well as the commercial center of New Mexico, and add greatly to its desirability as a place of residence.

Two daily newspapers, 4 weeklies, 11 churches, and the finest free public library in the Southwest, housed in a building of its own, put up at a cost of $25,000, complete the list of the town's moral forces, showing that ample provision has been made for the intellectual and spiritual welfare of the people, and that persons from other portions of the country going to Albuquerque need have no fears that they will be obliged to deny themselves or their children any of the essential concomitants of twentieth century civilization.

CHAVES COUNTY.

Chaves County borders on the Texas line in the southwestern part of the Territory, is bounded on the north by Guadalupe County, on the west by Lincoln and Otero, and on the south by Eddy County; has a population of over 7,000, and covers an area of 7,529,000 acres. The open range live-stock interests were originally the chief mainstay of the county and continue to-day the most important in point of taxpaying ability; but a fresh glory has come to that region of the Pecos