SONORA and SINALOA, (Sonora y Sinaloa,) no minally a state of the Republic of Mexico, but in fact an immense, and towards the northern part, but im perfectly known section of North America, exceeding in extent the whole Atlantic section of the United States. As laid down and coloured on Tanner's map of Mexico, Sonora and Sinaloa extends from N. Lat. 21° 40' to 39° 40', or through 18 degrees of latitude, and limited on the north-west by the Red river of the Gulf of California, (Rio Colorado,) and W. by the Gulf of California. It touches the states of Jalisco and Durango on the south-east, with Chihuahua and New Mexico stretching along the eastern border. Thus restricted, this country reaches from South to North over 1250 miles with a mean width of at least 200, and embraces an area of 250,000 square miles.
Restricting Sonora y Sinaloa to the Colorado river, however, leaves an unnamed region of Mexico south from N. Lat, 42°, which if included would give the state under review a superficies of at least 300,000 square miles. The following will be confined to the region between the Gulf of Bayona, and the Rio Gila.
According to Humboldt, the Intendancy of Sonora comprehended the three provinces of Cinaloa, or Sinaloa, Ostimury, and Sonora Proper. Sinaloa reached from the Rio del Rosario to the Rio del Fuerte. Ostimury occupied the narrow space between the Rio del Fuerte and the Rio Mayo. Sonora, more anciently New Navarre, included all the northern ex tremity of the Intendancy.
Sonora and Sinaloa is a hilly rather than moun tainous country, and from either the meagre descrip tion of Humboldt or its representation on our maps, is in a great degree devoid of large navigable rivers. The Rio Gila rises in the Sierra de los Mimbres, be tween N. Lat. 32° and from Washington City, and flowing westerly about four hundred miles, falls into the estuary of the Rio Colorado, N. Lat. 32° 50'. At a long interval of upwards of four hundred miles, flowing the coast SSE. with the small river Ascension excepted, there is no stream worthy notice from the mouth of the Rio Gila to that of the Hiaqui.
The Rio Hiaqui has its remote sources in the same chain with those of the Gila, but the former pursues a course of SW., four hundred miles, into the Gulf of California, which it enters opposite Cape St. Miguel, N. Lat. 27° 40'. It is probable that as a navigable entrance the Hiaqui is of little importance, as no city or extensive settlement has risen on its banks. From the outlet of Hiaqui to the Gulf of Bayona, in a dis tance of five hundred miles, several petty rivers flow from the interior, but are of minor value regarded The Gulf of California, the American Red Sea, is, in geographical strictness, the continuation of the Rio Colorado, and stretches along Sonora and Sinaloa, 800 miles front the mouth of the Rio Gila, to a line from Cape Palmas to the port of Mazatlan, where it terminates in the Pacific Ocean, N. Lat. 23° 15'. The Californian Gulf is narrow and much chequered with islands, and represented as of difficult and dangerous navigation. Between Cape Palmas, the south-eastern point of the peninsula of California, to the opposing shore of Sinaloa, the Gulf is 120 miles wide, but at Cape St. Miguel, and at the Tiburon islands, not above 40, and may, in all its length, average a mean breadth of 60 miles, or an area of 48,000 square miles.
If the mental eye is turned to a map of North Ame rica, and the courses of the Colorado and its recipient, the Gulf of California, are taken in connexion, with the great western confluents of the Mississippi, the conclusion follows, that in the advance of population and improvement, the greatest facility to an inland communication between the United States and the Pacific ocean, is offered by the route of Sonora and Sinaloa. If the view of the map of America is ex tended to that of the world, it will be seen, that a commercial chain extended from St. Louis on the Mississippi, over the Colorado basin stretches towards China, India, and Polynesia, and merges into the Pa cific Ocean twenty-three degrees of latitude more southwardly than by the Columbia.