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After absorbing, for near a hundred years, the revenue appropriated to completing the work, they abandoned it to the merchants of Mexico, who finally finished it. The pond that was to be drained by it, the Zumpango, was certainly an insignificant affair. There was nothing farther of interest until we arrived at Pachuca. Pachuca is the oldest mining district in Mexico.
In this valley are the two ponds, or lagunas, of Zumpango and San Cristobal, the highest waters of Mexico; and in it also is the half of the Tezcuco, which is the lowest laguna of the valleys.
The waters of the valley are now distributed in the best possible manner to favor evaporation; and yet so completely is this power taxed, that when, in 1629, a water-spout, bursting over the small river Guautitlan, had forced the waters of Zumpango over its barriers into the San Cristobal, and that again into the Tezcuco, the city was inundated to the depth of about three feet.
Suffice it to say, that by this means a constant outlet was made for the lake of Zumpango, the highest of the five, and for the Rio de Guatitlán, a stream which formerly ran into it. So much for one cause of the change in the present appearance of the city. Then the Spaniards were great cutters down of forests.
Lake Zumpango, with a surface ten miles square, is twenty-nine feet higher than the average level of the city of Mexico. Such drainage as is contemplated must tap and carry away these lakes also, to obviate the danger of their flooding the capital on any extraordinary emergency, else it will be of little avail.
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